R.U.R.

Rossum's Universal Robots

Table of Contents
Paul Selver translation
Characters
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
Epilogue
 
David Wyllie translation
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
R. U. R. (Rossum's Universal  Robots) by KAREL CAPEK Translated by Paul Selver and Nigel Playfair Robots of the world! The power of man has fallen! A new world has arisen: the Rule of the Robots! March!

CHARACTERS

HARRY DOMIN
SULLA
MARIUS
HELENA GLORY
DR. GALL
MR. FABRY
DR. HALLEMEIER
MR. ALQUIST
CONSUL BUSMAN
NANA
RADIUS
A SERVANT
HELENA
PRIMUS
FIRST ROBOT
SECOND ROBOT
THIRD ROBOT
FOURTH ROBOT


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

ACT I

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Central office of the factory of Rossum's Universal Robots.
 
Entrance on the right. The windows on the front wall look out on the rows of factory chimneys. On the left more managing departments. DOMIN is sitting in the revolving chair at a large American writing table. On the left-hand wall large maps showing steamship and railroad routes. On the right-hand wall are fastened printed placards. ( Robot's Cheapest Labor, etc.) In contrast to these wall fittings, the floor is covered with a splendid Turkish carpet, a sofa, leather armchair, and filing cabinets. At a desk near the windows SULLA is typing letters.

 
DOMIN
(dictating)
Ready?
 
SULLA
Yes.
 
DOMIN
To E. M. McVicker and Co., Southampton, England. We undertake no guarantee for goods damaged in transit. As soon as the consignment was taken on board we drew your captain's attention to the fact that the vessel was unsuitable for the transport of Robots, and we are therefore not responsible for spoiled freight. We beg to remain for Rossum's Universal Robots. Yours truly.
Sulla, who has sat motionless during dictation, now types rapidly for a few seconds, then stops, withdrawing the completed letter)
Ready?
 
SULLA
Yes.
 
DOMIN
Another letter. To the E. B. Huyson Agency, New York, U.S.A. We beg to acknowledge receipt of order for five thousand Robots. As you are sending your own vessel, please dispatch as cargo equal quantities of soft and hard coal for R.U.R., the same to be credited as part payment of the amount due to us. We beg to remain, for Rossum's Universal Robots. Yours truly.
(Sulla repeats the rapid typing)
Ready?
 
SULLA
Yes.
 
DOMIN
Another letter. Friedrichswerks, Hamburg, Germany. We beg to acknowledge receipt of order for fifteen thousand Robots.
(Telephone rings)
Hello! This is the Central Office. Yes. Certainly. Well, send them a wire. Good.
(Hangs up telephone)
Where did I leave off?
 
SULLA
We beg to acknowledge receipt of order for fifteen thousand Robots.
 
DOMIN
Fifteen thousand R. Fifteen thousand R.
(Enter MARIUS)
Well, what is it?
 
MARIUS
There's a lady, sir, asking to see you.
 
DOMIN
A lady? Who is she?
 
MARIUS
I don't know, sir. She brings this card of introduction.
 
DOMIN
(Reads the card)
Ah, from President Glory. Ask her to come in.
 
MARIUS
Please step this way.
(Enter HELENA GLORIA. Exit MARIUS.)
 
HELENA
How do you do?
 
DOMIN
How do you do.
(Standing up)
What can I do for you?
 
HELENA
You are Mr. Domin, the General Manager.
 
DOMIN
I am.
 
HELENA
I have come!
 
DOMIN
with President Glory's card. That is quite sufficient.
 
HELENA
President Glory is my father. I am Helena Glory.
 
DOMIN
Miss Glory, this is such a great honor for us to be allowed to! welcome our great President's daughter, that!--
 
HELENA
That you can't show me the door?
 
DOMIN
Please sit down. Sulla, you may go.
(Exit SULLA. Sitting down)
How can I be of service to you, Miss Glory?
 
HELENA
I have come!--
 
DOMIN
To have a look at our famous works where people are manufactured. Like all visitors. Well, there is no objection.
 
HELENA
I thought it was forbidden to!--
 
DOMIN
To enter the factory. Yes, of course. Everybody comes here with someone's visiting card, Miss Glory.
 
HELENA
And you show them!--
 
DOMIN
Only certain things. The manufacture of artificial people is a secret process.
 
HELENA
If you only knew how enormously that!--
 
DOMIN
Interests me. Europe's talking about nothing else.
 
HELENA
Why don't you let me finish speaking?
 
DOMIN
I beg your pardon. Did you wish to say something different?
 
HELENA
I only wanted to ask!--
 
DOMIN
Whether I could make a special exception in your case and show you our factory. Why, certainly, Miss Glory.
 
HELENA
How do you know I wanted to say that?
 
DOMIN
They all do. But we shall consider it a special honor to show you more than we do the rest.
 
HELENA
Thank you.
 
DOMIN
But you must agree not to divulge the least...
 
HELENA
(Standing up and giving him her hand)
My word of honor.
 
DOMIN
Thank you. Won t you raise your veil?
 
HELENA
Of course. You want to see whether or not I m a spy or not. I beg your pardon.
 
DOMIN
What is it?
 
HELENA
Would you mind releasing my hand?
 
DOMIN
(releases it)
I beg your pardon.
 
HELENA
(raising her veil)
How cautious you have to be here, don't you?
 
DOMIN
(observing her with deep interest)
Hm, of course!-- we!-- that is!--
 
HELENA
But what is it? What's the matter?
 
DOMIN
I'm remarkably pleased. Did you have a pleasant crossing?
 
HELENA
Yes.
 
DOMIN
No difficulty?
 
HELENA
Why?
 
DOMIN
What I mean to say is!-- you're so young.
 
HELENA
May we go straight into the factory?
 
DOMIN
Yes. Twenty-two, I think.
 
HELENA
Twenty-two what?
 
DOMIN
Years.
 
HELENA
Twenty-one. Why do you want to know?
 
DOMIN
Because!-- as!--
(with enthusiasm)
you will make a long stay, won't you?
 
HELENA
That depends on how much of the factory you show me.
 
DOMIN
Oh, hang the factory. Oh, no, no, you shall see everything, Miss Glory. Indeed you shall. Won't you sit down?
 
HELENA
(crosses to couch and sits)
Thank you.
 
DOMIN
But first would you like to hear the story of the invention?
 
HELENA
Yes, indeed.
 
DOMIN
(Observes Helena with rapture and reels off rapidly)
It was in the year 1920 when old Rossem, the great psychologist, who was then quite a young scientist, took himself to this distant island for the puropse of studying the ocean fauna, full stop. On this occasion he attempted by chemical synthesis to imitate the living matter known as protoplasm until he suddenly discovered a substance which behaved exactly like living matter although its chemical composition was different. That was in the year of 1932, exactly four hundred forty years after the discovery of America. Whew!
 
HELENA
Do you know that by heart?
 
DOMIN
Yes. You see psychology is not in my line. Shall I go on?
 
HELENA
Yes, please.
 
DOMIN
And then, Miss Glory, old Rossem wrote the following among his chemical specimens: Nature has found only one method of organizing living matter. There is, however, another method, more simple, flexible, and rapid, which has not yet occurred to nature at all. This second process by which life can be developed was discovered by me today. Now imagine him, Miss Glory, writing those wonderful words over some colloidial mess that a dog wouldn t look at. Imagine him sitting over a test tube, and thinking how the whole tree of life would grow from it, how all animals would proceed from it, beginning with some sort of beetle and ending with a man. A man of different substance from us. Miss Glory, that was a tremendous moment.
 
HELENA
Well?
 
DOMIN
Now, the thing was how to get the life out of the test tubes, and hasten development and form organs, bones, and nerves, so on, and find such substances as catalytics, enzymes, hormones, and so forth, in short!-- you understand?
 
HELENA
Not much, I'm afraid.
 
DOMIN
Never mind. You see with the help of his tinctures he could make whatever he wanted. He could have produced a Medusa with the brain of a Socrates or a worm fifty yards long. But being without a grain of humor, he took it into his head to make a vertebrate or perhaps a man. This artificial living matter of his had a raging thirst for life. It didn't mind being sewn or mixed together. That couldn't be done with natural albumen. And that's how he set about it.
 
HELENA
About what?
 
DOMIN
About imitating nature. First of all he tried making an artificial dog. That took him several years and resulted in a sort of stunted calf which died in a few days. I'll show it to you in the museum. And then old Rossum started on the manufacture of man.
 
HELENA
And I must divulge this to nobody?
 
DOMIN
To nobody in the world.
 
HELENA
What a pity that it's to be found in all the school books of both Europe and America.
 
DOMIN
Yes. But do you know what isn't in the school books? That old Rossum was mad. Seriously, Miss Glory, you must keep this to yourself. The old crank wanted to actually make people.
 
HELENA
But you do make people.
 
DOMIN
Approximately, Miss Glory. But old Rossum meant it literally. He wanted to become a sort of scientific substitute for God. He was a fearful materialist, and that's why he did it all. His sole purpose was nothing more nor less than to prove that God was no longer necessary. Do you know anything about anatomy?
 
HELENA
Very little.
 
DOMIN
Neither do I. Well, he then decided to manufacture everything as in the human body. I'll show you in the museum the bungling attempt it took him ten years to produce. It was to have been a man, but it lived for three days only. Then up came young Rossum, an engineer. He was a wonderful fellow, Miss Glory. When he saw what a mess of it the old man was making, he said: It's absurd to spend ten years making a man. If you can't make him quicker than nature, you might as well shut up shop. Then he set about learning anatomy himself.
 
HELENA
There's nothing about that in the school books.
 
DOMIN
No. The school books are full of paid advertisements, and rubbish at that. What the school books say about the united efforts of the two great Rossums is all a fairy tale. They used to have dreadful rows. The old atheist hadn t the slightest conception of industrial mattters and the end if it was that young Rossum shut him up in some laboratory or other and let him fritter his time away with his monstrosities, while he himself started on the business from an engineer s point of view. Old Rossum cursed him and before he died he managed to botch up twp physiological horrors. Then one day they found him dead in the laboratory. And that s his whole story.
 
HELENA
And what about the young man?
 
DOMIN
Well, anyone who has looked into human anatomy will have seen at once that man is too complicated, and that a good engineer could make him more simply. So young Rossum bagan to overhaul anatomy and tried to see what could be left out or simplified. In short!-- But this isn t boring you, Miss Glory?
 
HELENA
No Indeed. You re!-- it s awfully interesting.
 
DOMIN
So young Rossum said to himself: A man is ssomethiing that feels happy, plays the piano, likes going for a walk, and in fact wants to do a whole lot of things that are really unnecessary.
 
HELENA
Oh.
 
DOMIN
That are unnecessary when he wants, let us say, to weave or count. Do you play the piano?
 
HELENA
Yes.
 
DOMIN
That's good. But a working machine must not play the piano, must not feel happy, must not do a whole lot of other things. A gasoline motor must not have tassels or ornaments, Miss Glory. And to manufacture artificial workers is the same thing as to manufacture gasoline motors. The process must be of the simplest, and the product of the best from a practical point of view. What sort of worker do you think is the best from a practical point of view?
 
HELENA
What?
 
DOMIN
What sort of worker do you think is the best from a practical point of view?
 
HELENA
Perhaps the one who is most honest and hardworking.
 
DOMIN
No; the one that is the cheapest. The one whose requirements are the smallest. Young Rossum invented a worker with the minimum amount of requirements. He had to simplify him. He rejected everything that did not contribute directly to the progress of work!-- everything that makes man more expensive. In fact, he rejected man and made the Robot. My dear Miss Glory, the Robots are not people. Mechanically they are more perfect than we are, they have an enormously developed intelligence, but they have no soul.
 
HELENA
How do you know they ve no soul?
 
DOMIN
Have you ever seen what a Robot looks like inside?
 
HELENA
No.
 
DOMIN
Very neat, very simple. Really, a beautiful piece of work. Not much in it, but everything in flawless order. The product of an engineer is technically at a higher pitch of perfection than a product of nature.
 
HELENA
But man is supposed to be the product of God.
 
DOMIN
All the worse. God hasn't the least notion of modern engineering. Would you believe that young Rossum then proceeded to play at being G6d?
 
HELENA
How do you mean?
 
DOMIN
He began to manufacture Super Robots. Regular giants they were. He tried to make them twelve feet tall. But you wouldn t believe what a failure they were.
 
HELENA
A failure?
 
DOMIN
Yes. For no reason at all thir limbs used to keep snapping off. Evidently our planet is too small for giants. Now we only make robots of normal size and of very high class human finish.
 
HELENA
I saw the first robots at home. The town counsel bought them for!-- I mean engaged them for work.
 
DOMIN
Bought them, dear Miss Glory. Robots are bought and sold.
 
HELENA
These were employed as street sweepers. I saw them sweeping. They were so strange and quiet.
 
DOMIN
Rossum's Universal Robot factory doesn't produce a uniform brand of Robots. We have Robots of finer and coarser grades. The best will live about twenty years.
 
(He rings for Marius.)
 
HELENA
Then they die?
 
DOMIN
Yes, they get used up.
(Enter Marius)
Marius, bring in samples of the Manual Labor Robot.
(Exit Marius)
I'll show you specimens of the two extremes. This first grade is comparatively inexpensive and is made in vast quantities.
(Marius re-enters with two Manual Labor ROBOTS)
There you are; as powerful as a small tractor. Guaranteed to have average intelligence. That will do, Marius.
 
Marius exits with ROBOTS.)
 
HELENA
They make me feel so strange.
 
DOMIN
(rings)
Did you see my new typist?
 
(He rings for Sulla.
 
HELENA
I didn't notice her.
 
(Enter Sulla.)
 
DOMIN
Sulla, let Miss Glory see you.
 
HELENA
So pleased to meet you. You must find it terribly dull in this out-of-the-way spot, don't you?
 
SULLA
I don't know, Miss Glory.
 
HELENA
Where do you come from?
 
SULLA
From the factory.
 
HELENA
Oh, you were born there?
 
SULLA
I was made there.
 
HELENA
What?
 
DOMIN
(laughing)
Sulla is a Robot, best grade.
 
HELENA
Oh, I beg your pardon.
 
DOMIN
Sulla isn't angry. See, Miss Glory, the kind of skin we make.
(Feels the skin on Sulla's face)
Feel her face.
 
HELENA
Oh, no, no.
 
DOMIN
You wouldn't know that she's made of different material from us, would you? Turn round, Sulla.
 
HELENA
Oh, stop, stop.
 
DOMIN
Talk to Miss Glory, Sulla.
 
SULLA
Please sit down.
(Helena sits)
Did you have a pleasant crossing?
 
HELENA
Oh, yes, certainly.
 
SULLA
Don't go back on the Amelia, Miss Glory. The barometer is falling steadily. wait for the Pennsylvania. That's a good, powerful vessel.
 
DOMIN
What's its speed?
 
SULLA
Twenty knots. Fifty thousand tons. One of the latest vessels, Miss Glory.
 
HELENA
Thank you.
 
SULLA
A crew of fifteen hundred, Captain Harpy, eight boilers!--
 
DOMIN
That'll do, Sulla. Now show us your knowledge of French.
 
HELENA
You know French?
 
SULLA
I know four languages. I can write: Dear Sir, Monsieur, Geehrter Herr, Cteny pane.
 
HELENA
(jumping up)
Oh, that's absurd! Sulla isn't a Robot. Sulla is a girl like me. Sulla, this is outrageous! Why do you take part in such a hoax?
 
SULLA
I am a Robot.
 
HELENA
No, no, you are not telling the truth. I know they've forced you to do it for an advertisement. Sulla, you are a girl like me, aren't you?
 
DOMIN
I'm sorry, Miss Glory. Sulla is a Robot.
 
HELENA
It's a lie!
 
DOMIN
What?
(Rings)
Excuse me, Miss Glory, then I must convince you.
 
(Enter Marius).
 
DOMIN
Marius, take Sulla into the dissecting room, and tell them to open her up at once.
 
HELENA
Where?
 
DOMIN
Into the dissecting room. When they've cut her open, you can go and have a look.
 
HELENA
No, no!
 
DOMIN
Excuse me, you spoke of lies.
 
HELENA
You wouldn't have her killed?
 
DOMIN
You can't kill machines.
 
HELENA
Don't be afraid, Sulla, I won't let you go. Tell me, my dear, are they always so cruel to you? You mustn't put up with it, Sulla. You mustn't.
 
SULLA
I am a Robot.
 
HELENA
That doesn't matter. Robots are just as good as we are. Sulla, you wouldn't let yourself be cut to pieces?
 
SULLA
Yes.
 
HELENA
Oh, you're not afraid of death, then?
 
SULLA
I cannot tell, Miss Glory.
 
HELENA
Do you know what would happen to you in there?
 
SULLA
Yes, I should cease to move.
 
HELENA
How dreadful!
 
DOMIN
Marius, tell Miss Glory what you are.
 
MARIUS
Marius, the Robot.
 
DOMIN
Would you take Sulla into the dissecting room?
 
MARlUS
Yes.
 
DOMIN
Would you be sorry for her?
 
MARIUS
I cannot tell.
 
DOMIN
What would happen to her?
 
MARIUS
She would cease to move. They would put her into the stamping-mill.
 
DOMIN
That is death, Marius. Aren't you afraid of death?
 
MARIUS
No.
 
DOMIN
You see, Miss Glory, the Robots have no interest in life. They have no enjoyments. They are less than so much grass.
 
HELENA
Oh, stop. Send them away.
 
DOMIN
Marius, Sulla, you may go.
 
(Exeunt Sulla and Marius.)
 
HELENA
How terrible! It's outrageous what you are doing.
 
DOMIN
Why outrageous?
 
HELENA
I don't know, but it is. Why do you call her Sulla?
 
DOMIN
Isn't it a nice name?
 
HELENA
It's a man's name. Sulla was a Roman general.
 
DOMIN
Oh, we thought that Marius and Sulla were lovers.
 
HELENA
Marius and Sulla were generals and fought against each other in the year!-- I've forgotten now.
 
DOMIN
Come here to the window.
 
HELENA
What?
 
DOMIN
Come here. What do you see?
 
HELENA
Bricklayers.
 
DOMIN
Robots. All our work people are Robots. And down there, can you see anything?
 
HELENA
Some sort of office.
 
DOMIN
A counting house. And in it!--
 
HELENA
A lot of officials.
 
DOMIN
Robots. All our officials are Robots. And when you see the factory!--
(Factory whistle blows)
Noon. We have to blow the whistle because the Robots don't know when to stop work. In two hours I will show you the kneading trough.
 
HELENA
Kneading trough?
 
DOMIN
The pestle for beating up the paste. In each one we mix the ingredients for a thousand Robots at one operation. Then there are the vats for the preparation of liver, brains, and so on. Then you will see the bone factory. After that I'll show you the spinning mill.
 
HELENA
Spinning mill?
 
DOMIN
Yes. For weaving nerves and veins. Miles and miles of digestive tubes pass through it at a time.
 
HELENA
Mayn't we talk about something else?
 
DOMIN
Perhaps it would be better. There's only a handful of us among a hundred thousand Robots, and not one woman. We talk about nothing but the factory all day, every day. It's just as if we were under a curse, Miss Glory.
 
HELENA
I'm sorry I said that you were lying.
 
(A knock at the door.)
 
DOMIN
Come in.
 
(From the right enter MR. FABRY, DR. GALL, HALLEMEIER, MR. ALQUIST.)
 
DR. GALL
I beg your pardon, I hope we don't intrude.
 
DOMIN
Come in. Miss Glory, here are Alquist, Fabry, Gall, Hallemeier. This is President Glory's daughter.
 
HELENA
How do you do.
 
FABRY
We had no idea!--
 
DR. GALL
Highly honored, I'm sure!--
 
ALQUIST
Welcome, Miss Glory.
 
(BUSMAN rushes in from the right.)
 
BUSMAN
Hello, what's up?
 
DOMIN
Come in, Busman. This is Busman, Miss Glory. This is President Glory's daughter.
 
BUSMAN
By Jove, that's fine! Miss Glory, may we send a cablegram to the papers about your arrival?
 
HELENA
No, no, please don't.
 
DOMIN
Sit down please, Miss Glory.
 
BUSMAN
Allow me!-
(Dragging up armchairs)
 
DR. GALL
Please!--
 
FABRY
Excuse me!--
 
ALQUIST
What sort of a crossing did you have?
 
DR. GALL
Are you going to stay long?
 
FABRY
What do you think of the factory, Miss Glory?
 
HALLEMEIER
Did you come over on the Amelia?
 
DOMIN
Be quiet and let Miss Glory speak.
 
HELENA
(to Domin) What am I to speak to them about?
 
DOMIN
Anything you like.
 
HELENA
Shall... may I speak quite frankly?
 
DOMIN
Why, of course.
 
HELENA
(wavering, then in desperate resolution)
Tell me, doesn't it ever distress you the way you are treated?
 
FABRY
By whom, may I ask?
 
HELENA
Why, everybody.
 
ALQUIST
Treated?
 
DR. GALL
What makes you think!-- ?
 
HELENA
Don't you feel that you might be living a better life?
 
DR. GALL
Well, that depends on what you mean, Miss Glory.
 
HELENA
I mean that it's perfectly outrageous. It's terrible.
(Standing up)
The whole of Europe is talking about the way you're being treated. That's why I came here, to see for myself, and it's a thousand times worse than could have been imagined. How can you put up with it?
 
ALQUIST
Put up with what?
 
HELENA
Good heavens, you are living creatures, just like us, like the whole of Europe, like the whole world. It's disgraceful that you must live like this.
 
BUSMAN
Good gracious, Miss Glory.
 
FABRY
Well, she's not far wrong. We live here just like red Indians.
 
HELENA
Worse than red Indians. May I, oh, may I call you brothers?
 
BUSMAN
Why not?
 
HELENA
Brothers, I have not come here as the President's daughter. I have come on behalf of the Humanity League. Brothers, the Humanity League now has over two hundred thousand members. Two hundred thousand people are on your side, and offer you their help.
 
BUSMAN
Two hundred thousand people! Miss Glory, that's a tidy lot. Not bad.
 
FABRY
I'm always telling you there's nothing like good old Europe. You see, they've not forgotten us. They're offering us help.
 
DR. GALL
What help? A theatre, for instance?
 
HALLEMEIER
An orchestra?
 
HELENA
More than that.
 
ALQUIST
Just you?
 
HELENA
Oh, never mind about me. I'll stay as long as it is necessary.
 
BUSMAN
By Jove, that's good.
 
ALQUIST
Domin, I'm going to get the best room ready for Miss Glory.
 
DOMIN
Just a minute. I'm afraid that Miss Glory is of the opinion that she has been talking to Robots.
 
HELENA
Of course.
 
DOMIN
I'm sorry. These gentlemen are human beings just like us.
 
HELENA
You're not Robots?
 
BUSMAN
Not Robots.
 
HALLEMEIER
Robots indeed!
 
DR. GALL
No, thanks.
 
FABRY
Upon my honor, Miss Glory, we aren't Robots.
 
HELENA
(to Domin)
Then why did you tell me that all your officials are Robots?
 
DOMIN
Yes, the officials, but not the managers. Allow me, Miss Glory: this is Mr. Fabry, General Technical Manager of R.U.R.; Dr. Gall, Head of the Psychological and Experimental Department; Dr. Hallemeier, Head of the Institute for the Psychological Training of Robots; Consul Busman, General Business Manager; and Alquist, Head of the Building Department of R.U.R.
 
ALQUIST
Just a builder.
 
HELENA
Excuse me, gentlemen, for!-- for!-- . Have I done something dreadful?
 
ALQUIST
Not at all, Miss Glory. Please sit down.
 
HELENA
I'm a stupid girl. Send me back by the first ship.
 
DR. GALL
Not for anything in the world, Miss Glory. Why should we send you back?
 
HELENA
Because you know I've come to disturb your Robots for you.
 
DOMIN
My dear Miss Glory, we've had close upon a hundred saviours and prophets here. Every ship brings us some. Missionaries, anarchists, Salvation Army, all sorts. It's astonishing what a number of churches and idiots there are in the world.
 
HELENA
And you let them speak to the Robots?
 
DOMIN
So far we've let them all, why not? The Robots remember everything, but that's all. They don't even laugh at what the people say. Really, it is quite incredible. If it would amuse you, Miss Glory, I'll take you over to the Robot warehouse. It holds about three hundred thousand of them.
 
BUSMAN
Three hundred and forty-seven thousand.
 
DOMIN
Good! And you can say whatever you like to them. You can read the Bible, recite the multiplication table, whatever you please. You can even preach to them about human rights.
 
HELENA
Oh, I think that if you were to show them a little love!--
 
FABRY
Impossible, Miss Glory. Nothing is harder to like than a Robot.
 
HELENA
What do you make them for, then?
 
BUSMAN
Ha, ha, ha, that's good! What are Robots made for?
 
FABRY
For work, Miss Glory! One Robot can replace two and a half workmen. The human machine, Miss Glory, was terribly imperfect. It had to be removed sooner or later.
 
BUSMAN
It was too expensive.
 
FABRY
It was not effective. It no longer answers the requirements of modern engineering. Nature has no idea of keeping pace with modern labor. For example: from a technical point of view, the whole of childhood is a sheer absurdity. So much time lost. And then again!--
 
HELENA
Oh, no! No!
 
FABRY
Pardon me. But kindly tell me what is the real aim of your League!-- the... the Humanity League.
 
HELENA
Its real purpose is to!-- to protect the Robots!-- and!-- and ensure good treatment for them.
 
FABRY
Not a bad object, either. Upon my soul, I approve of that. I don't like damaged articles. Please, Miss Glory, enroll us all as contributing, or regular, or foundation members of your league.
 
HELENA
No, you don't understand me. What we really want is to!-- to liberate the Robots.
 
HALLEMEIER
How do you propose to do that?
 
HELENA
They are to be!-- to be dealt with like human beings.
 
HALLEMEIER
Aha. I suppose they're to vote? To drink beer? to order us about?
 
HELENA
Why shouldn't they drink beer?
 
HALLEMEIER
Perhaps they're even to receive wages?
 
HELENA
Of course they are.
 
HALLEMEIER
Fancy that, now! And what would they do with their wages, pray?
 
HELENA
They would buy!-- what they need... what pleases them...
 
HALLEMEIER
That would be very nice, Miss Glory, only there's nothing that does please the Robots. Good heavens, what are they to buy? You can feed them on pineapples, straw, whatever you like. It's all the same to them, they've no appetite at all. They've no interest in anything, Miss Glory. Why, hang it all, nobody's ever yet seen a Robot smile.
 
HELENA
Why... why don't you make them happier?
 
HALLEMEIER
That wouldn't do, Miss Glory. They are only workmen.
 
HELENA
Oh, but they're so intelligent.
 
HALLEMEIER
Confoundedly so, but they're nothing else. They've no will of their own. No passion. No soul.
 
HELENA
No love?
 
HALLEMEIER
Love? Rather not. Robots don't love. Not even themselves.
 
HELENA
Nor defiance?
 
HALLEMEIER
Defiance? I don't know. Only rarely, from time to time.
 
HELENA
What?
 
HALLEMEIER
Nothing particular. Occasionally they seem to go off their heads. Something like epilepsy, you know. It's called Robot's cramp. They'll suddenly sling down everything they're holding, stand still, gnash their teeth!-- and then they have to go into the stamping-mill. It's evidently some breakdown in the mechanism.
 
DOMIN
A flaw in the works that has to be removed.
 
HELENA
No, no, that's the soul.
 
FABRY
Do you think that the soul first shows itself by a gnashing of teeth?
 
HELENA
Perhaps it's a sort of revolt. Perhaps it's just a sign that there's a struggle within. Oh, if you could infuse them with it!
 
DOMIN
That'll be remedied, Miss Glory. Dr. Gall is just making some experiments!--
 
DR. GALL
Not with regard to that, Domin. At present I am making pain nerves.
 
HELENA
Pain-nerves?
 
DR. GALL
Yes, the Robots feel practically no bodily pain. You see, young Rossum provided them with too limited a nervous system. We must introduce suffering.
 
HELENA
Why do you want to cause them pain?
 
DR. GALL
For industrial reasons, Miss Glory. Sometimes a Robot does damage to himself because it doesn't hurt him. He puts his hand into the machine, breaks his finger, smashes his head, its all the same to him. We must provide them with pain. That's an automatic protection against damage.
 
HELENA
Will they be happier when they feel pain?
 
DR. GALL
On the contrary; but they will be more perfect from a technical point of view.
 
HELENA
Why don t you create a soul for them?
 
DR. GALL
That s not in our power.
 
FABRY
That's not in our interest.
 
BUSMAN
That would increase the cost of production. Hang it all, my dear young lady, we turn them out at such a cheap rate. A hundred and fifty dollars each fully dressed, and fifteen years ago they cost ten thousand. Five years ago we used to buy the clothes for them. To-day we have our own weaving mill, and now we even export cloth five times cheaper than other factories. What do you pay a yard for cloth, Miss Glory?
 
HELENA
I don't know really, I've forgotten.
 
BUSMAN
Good gracious, and you want to found a Humanity League? It only costs a third now, Miss Glory. All prices are today a third of what they were and they'll fall still lower, lower, lower, like that.
 
HELENA
I don't understand.
 
BUSMAN
Why, bless you, Miss Glory, it means that the cost of labor has fallen. A Robot, food and all, costs three quarters of a cent per hour. That's mighty important, you know. All factories will go pop like chestnuts if they don't at once buy Robots to lower the cost of production.
 
HELENA
And get rid of their workmen?
 
BUSMAN
Of course. But in the meantime, we've dumped five hundred thousand tropical Robots down on the Argentine pampas to grow corn. Would you mind telling me how much you pay a pound for bread?
 
HELENA
I've no idea.
 
BUSMAN
We'll I'll tell you. It now costs two cents in good old Europe. A pound of bread for two cents, and the Humanity League knows nothing about it. Miss Glory, you don't realize that even that's too expensive. Why, in five years' time I'll wager!--
 
HELENA
What?
 
BUSMAN
That the cost of everything won't be a tenth of what it is now. Why, in five years we'll be up to our ears in corn and everything else.
 
ALQUIST
Yes, and all the workers throughout the world will be employed.
 
DOMIN
Yes, Alquist, they will. Yes, Miss Glory, they will. But in ten years Rossum's Universal Robots will produce so much corn, so much cloth, so much everything, that things will be practically without price. There will be no poverty. All work will be done by living machines. Everybody will be free from worry and liberated from the degradation of labor. Everybody will live only to perfect himself.
 
HELENA
Will he?
 
DOMIN
Of course. It's bound to happen. But then the servitude of man to man and the enslavement of man to matter will cease. Of course, terrible things may happen at first, but that simply can't be avoided. Nobody will get bread at the price of life and hatred. The Robots will wash the feet of the beggar and prepare a bed for him in his house.
 
ALQUIST
Domin, Domin. What you say sounds too much like Paradise. There was something good in service and something great in humility. There was some kind of virtue in toil and weariness.
 
DOMIN
Perhaps. But we cannot reckon with what is lost when we start out to transform the world. Man shall be free and supreme; he shall have no other aim, no other labor, no other care than to perfect himself. He shall serve neither matter nor man. He will not be a machine and a device for production. He will be Lord of creation.
 
BUSMAN
Amen.
 
FABRY
So be it.
 
HELENA
You have bewildered me!-- I should like!-- I should like to believe this.
 
DR. GALL
You are younger than we are, Miss Glory. You will live to see it.
 
HALLEMEIER
True. Don't you think Miss Glory might lunch with us?
 
DR. GALL
Of course. Domin, ask on behalf of us all.
 
DOMIN
Miss Glory, will you do us the honor?
 
HELENA
When you know why I've come!--
 
FABRY
For the League of Humanity, Miss Glory.
 
HELENA
Oh, in that case, perhaps!--
 
FABRY
That's fine! Miss Glory, excuse me for five minutes.
 
DR. GALL
Pardon me, too, dear Miss Glory.
 
BUSMAN
I won't be long.
 
HALLEMEIER
We're all very glad you've come.
 
BUSMAN
We'll be back in exactly five minutes.
(All rush out except Domin and Helena.)
 
HELENA
What have they all gone off for?
 
DOMIN
To cook, Miss Glory.
 
HELENA
To cook what?
 
DOMIN
Lunch. The Robots do our cooking for us and as they've no taste it's not altogether!-- Hallemeier is awfully good at grills and Gall can make a kind of sauce, and Busman knows all about omelettes.
 
HELENA
What a feast! And what's the specialty of Mr.!-- your builder?
 
DOMIN
Alquist? Nothing. He only lays the table. And Fabry will get together a little fruit. Our cuisine is very modest, Miss Glory.
 
HELENA
I wanted to ask you something!--
 
DOMIN
And I wanted to ask you something, too.
(Looking at watch)
Five minutes.
 
HELENA
What did you want to ask me?
 
DOMIN
Excuse me, you asked first.
 
HELENA
Perhaps it's silly of me, but why do you manufacture female Robots when!-- when!--
 
DOMIN
When sex means nothing to them?
 
HELENA
Yes.
 
DOMIN
There's a certain demand for them, you see. Servants, saleswomen, stenographers. People are used to it.
 
HELENA
But!-- but, tell me, are the Robots male and female mutually!-- completely without!--
 
DOMIN
Completely indifferent to each other, Miss Glory. There's no sign of any affection between them.
 
HELENA
Oh, that's terrible.
 
DOMIN
Why?
 
HELENA
It's so unnatural. One doesn't know whether to be disgusted or to hate them, or perhaps!--
 
DOMIN
To pity them?
 
HELENA
That's more like it. What did you want to ask me about?
 
DOMIN
I should like to ask you, Miss Helena, whether you will marry me?
 
HELENA
What?
 
DOMIN
will you be my wife?
 
HELENA
No! The idea!
 
DOMIN
(looking at his watch)
Another three minutes. If you won't marry me you'll have to marry one of the other five.
 
HELENA
But why should I?
 
DOMIN
Because they're all going to ask you in turn.
 
HELENA
How could they dare do such a thing?
 
DOMIN
I'm very sorry, Miss Glory. It seems they've all fallen in love with you.
 
HELENA
Please don't let them. I'll!-- I'll go away at once.
 
DOMIN
Helena, you wouldn't be so cruel as to refuse us.
 
HELENA
But, but!-- I can't marry all six.
 
DOMIN
No, but one anyhow. If you don't want me, marry Fabry.
 
HELENA
I won't.
 
DOMIN
Dr. Gall.
 
HELENA
I don't want any of you.
 
DOMIN
(again looking at his watch)
Another two minutes.
 
HELENA
I think you'd marry any woman who came here.
 
DOMIN
Plenty of them have come, Helena.
 
HELENA
Young?
 
DOMIN
Yes.
 
HELENA
Why didn't you marry one of them?
 
DOMIN
Because I didn't lose my head. Until you lifted your veil!-
(Helena turns her head away)
Another minute.
 
HELENA
But I don't want you, I tell you.
 
DOMIN
(laying both hands on her shoulders)
One more minute! Now you either have to look me straight in the eye and say No, violently, and then I'll leave you alone!-- or!--
(Helena looks at him.)
 
HELENA
(turning away)
You're mad!
 
DOMIN
A man has to be a bit mad, Helena. That's the best thing about him.
 
HELENA
You are!-- you are!--
 
DOMIN
Well?
 
HELENA
Don't, you're hurting me.
 
DOMIN
The last chance, Helena. Now, or never!--
 
HELENA
But!-- but, Harry!--
(He embraces and kisses her. Knocking at the door.
 
DOMIN
(releasing her)
Come in.
(Enter Busman, Dr. Gall, and HALLEMEIRE in kitchen aprons. Fabry with bouquet and Alquist with napkin over his arm)
Have you finished your job?
 
BUSMAN
Yes.
 
DOMIN
So have we.
(For a moment the men stand nonplussed; but as soon as they realize what Domin means they rush forward, congratulating Helena and Domin as the curtain falls.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
END OF ACT ONE
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  ACT II

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Helena's drawing room.
 
On the left a baize door, and a door to the music room, on the right a door to Helena's bedroom. In the centre are windows looking out on the sea and the harbor. A table with odds and ends, a sofa and chairs, a writing table with an electric lamp, on the right a fireplace. On a small table back of the sofa, a small reading lamp. The whole drawing room in all its details is of a modern and purely feminine character. Ten years have elapsed since Act I.
 
(DOMIN, FABRY, HALLEMEIER, enter on tiptoe from the left, each carrying a potted plant.

 
HALLEMEIER
(putting down his flower and indicating the door to right)
Still asleep? Well, as long as she's asleep she can't worry about it.
 
DOMIN
She knows nothing about it.
 
FABRY
(putting plant on writing desk)
I certainly hope nothing happens today.
 
HALLEMEIER
For goodness' sake drop it all. Look, Harry, this is a fine cyclamen, isn't it? A new sort, my latest!-- Cyclamen HELENA.
 
DOMIN
(looking out of the window)
No signs of the ship. Things must be pretty bad.
 
HALLEMEIER
Be quiet. Suppose she heard you.
 
DOMIN
Well, anyway, the Ultimus arrived just in time.
 
FABRY
You really think that today!-- ?
 
DOMIN
I don't know. Aren't the flowers fine?
 
HALLEMEIER
These are my new primroses. And this is my new jasmine. I've discovered a wonderful way of developing flowers quickly. Splendid varieties, too. Next year I'll be developing marvelous ones.
 
DOMIN
What... next year?
 
FABRY
I'd give a good deal to know what's happening at Havre with!--
 
DOMIN
Keep quiet.
 
HELENA
(calling from right)
Nana!
 
DOMIN
She's awake. Out you go.
 
(All go out on tiptoe through upper left door. Enter NANA from lower left door.
 
NANA
Horrid mess! Pack of heathens. If I had my say I'd!--
 
HELENA
(backwards in the doorway)
Nana, come and do up my dress.
 
NANA
I'm coming. So you're up at last.
(fastening Helena's dress)
My gracious, what brutes!
 
HELENA
Who?
 
NANA
If you want to turn around, then turn around, but I shan't fasten you up.
 
HELENA
What are you grumbling about now?
 
NANA
These dreadful creatures, these heathen!--
 
HELENA
The Robots?
 
NANA
I wouldn't even call them by name.
 
HELENA
What's happened?
 
NANA
Another of them here has caught it. He began to smash up the statues and pictures in the drawing room, gnashed his teeth, foamed at the mouth!-- quite mad. Worse than an animal.
 
HELENA
Which of them caught it?
 
NANA
The one!-- well, he hasn't got any Christian name. The one in charge of the library.
 
HELENA
Radius?
 
NANA
That's him. My goodness, I'm scared of them. A spider doesn't scare me as much as them.
 
HELENA
But, Nana, I'm surprised you're not sorry for them.
 
NANA
Why, you're scared of them, too! You know you are. Why else did you bring me here?
 
HELENA
I'm not scared, really I'm not, Nana. I'm only sorry for them.
 
NANA
You're scared. Nobody could help being scared. Why, the dog's scared of them: he won't take a scrap of meat out of their hands. He draws in his tail and howls when he knows they're about.
 
HELENA
The dog has no sense.
 
NANA
He's better than them, and he knows it. Even the horse shies when he meets them. They don't have any young, and a dog has young, everyone has young!--
 
HELENA
Please fasten up my dress, Nana.
 
NANA
I say it's against God's will to!--
 
HELENA
What is it that smells so nice?
 
NANA
Flowers.
 
HELENA
What for?
 
NANA
Now you can turn around.
 
HELENA
Oh, aren't they lovely. Look, Nana. What's happening today?
 
NANA
It ought to be the end of the world.
 
(Enter DOMIN.)
 
HELENA
Oh, hello, Harry. Harry, why all these flowers?
 
DOMIN
Guess.
 
HELENA
Well, it's not my birthday!
 
DOMIN
Better than that.
 
HELENA
I don't know. Tell me.
 
DOMIN
It's ten years ago today since you came here.
 
HELENA
Ten years? To-day!-- Why!--
 
(They embrace.)
 
NANA
I'm off.
(Exits lower door, left)
 
HELENA
Fancy you remembering!
 
DOMIN
I'm really ashamed, Helena. I didn't.
 
HELENA
But you!--
 
DOMIN
They remembered.
 
HELENA
Who?
 
DOMIN
Busman, Hallemeier, all of them. Put your hand in my pocket.
 
HELENA
Pearls! A necklace. Harry, is that for me?
 
DOMIN
It's from Busman.
 
HELENA
But we can't accept it, can we?
 
DOMIN
Oh, yes, we can. Put your hand in the other pocket.
 
HELENA
(takes a revolver out of his pocket)
What's that?
 
DOMIN
Sorry. Not that. Try again.
 
HELENA
Oh, Harry, what do you carry a revolver for?
 
DOMIN
It got there by mistake.
 
HELENA
You never used to carry one.
 
DOMIN
No, you're right. There, that's the pocket.
 
HELENA
A cameo. Why, it's a Greek cameo!
 
DOMIN
Apparently. Anyhow, Fabry says it is.
 
HELENA
Fabry? Did Mr. Fabry give me that?
 
DOMIN
Of course.
(Opens the door at the left)
And look in here!-- Helena, come and see this.
 
HELENA
Oh, isn't it fine! Is this from you?
 
DOMIN
No, from Alquist. And there's another on the piano.
 
HELENA
This must be from you.
 
DOMIN
There's a card on it.
 
HELENA
From Dr. Gall.
(Reappearing in the doorway)
Oh, Harry, I feel embarrassed at so much kindness.
 
DOMIN
Come here. This is what Hallemeier brought you.
 
HELENA
These beautiful flowers?
 
DOMIN
Yes. It's a new kind. Cyclamen Helena. He grew them in honor of you. They are almost as beautiful as you.
 
HELENA
Harry, why do they all!--
 
DOMIN
They're awfully fond of you. I'm afraid that my present is a little!-- Look out of the window.
 
HELENA
Where?
 
DOMIN
Into the harbor.
 
HELENA
There's a new ship.
 
DOMIN
That's your ship.
 
HELENA
Mine? How do you mean?
 
DOMIN
For you to take trips in!-- for your amusement.
 
HELENA
Harry, that's a gunboat.
 
DOMIN
A gunboat? What are you thinking of? It's only a little bigger and more solid than most ships.
 
HELENA
Yes, but with guns.
 
DOMIN
Oh, yes, with a few guns. You'll travel like a queen, Helena.
 
HELENA
What's the meaning of it? Has anything happened?
 
DOMIN
Good heavens, no. I say, try these pearls.
 
HELENA
Harry, have you had bad news?
 
DOMIN
On the contrary, no letters have arrived for a whole week.
 
HELENA
Nor telegrams?
 
DOMIN
Nor telegrams.
 
HELENA
What does that mean?
 
DOMIN
Holidays for us. We all sit in the office with our feet on the table and take a nap. No letters, no telegrams. Oh, glorious.
 
HELENA
Then you'll stay with me today?
 
DOMIN
Certainly. That is, we will see. Do you remember ten years ago today? Miss Glory, it's a great honor to welcome you.
 
HELENA
Oh, Mr. Manager, I'm so interested in your factory.
 
DOMIN
I'm sorry, Miss Glory, it's strictly forbidden. The manufacture of artificial people is a secret.
 
HELENA
But I oblige a young lady who has come a long way.
 
DOMIN
Certainly, Miss Glory, we have no secrets from you.
 
HELENA
(seriously)
Are you sure, Harry?
 
DOMIN
Yes.
 
HELENA
But I warn you, sir; this young lady intends to do terrible things.
 
DOMIN
Good gracious, Miss Glory. Perhaps she doesn't want to marry me.
 
HELENA
Heaven forbid. She never dreamt of such a thing. But she came here intending to stir up a revolt among your Robots.
 
DOMIN
(suddenly serious)
A revolt of the Robots!
 
HELENA
Harry, what's the matter with you?
 
DOMIN
(laughing it off)
A revolt of the Robots, that's a fine idea, Miss Glory. It would be easier for you to cause bolts and screws to rebel, than our Robots. You know, Helena, you're wonderful, you've turned the heads of us all.
 
(He sits on the arm of Helena's chair.
 
HELENA
(naturally)
Oh, I was fearfully impressed by you all then. You were all so sure of yourselves, so strong. I seemed like a tiny little girl who had lost her way among!-- among!--
 
DOMIN
Among what, Helena?
 
HELENA
Among huge trees. All my feelings were so trifling compared with your self-confidence. And in all these years I've never lost this anxiety. But you've never felt the least misgivings!-- not even when everything went wrong.
 
DOMIN
What went wrong?
 
HELENA
Your plans. You remember, Harry, when the working men in America revolted against the Robots and smashed them up, and when the people gave the Robots firearms against the rebels. And then when the governments turned the Robots into soldiers, and there were so many wars.
 
DOMIN
(getting up and walking about)
We foresaw that, Helena. You see, those are only passing troubles, which are bound to happen before the new conditions are established.
 
HELENA
You were all so powerful, so overwhelming. The whole world bowed down before you.
(Standing up)
Oh, Harry!
 
DOMIN
What is it?
 
HELENA
Close the factory and let's go away. All of us.
 
DOMIN
I say, what's the meaning of this?
 
HELENA
I don't know. But can't we go away?
 
DOMIN
Impossible, Helena. That is, at this particular moment!--
 
HELENA
At once, Harry. I'm so frightened.
 
DOMIN
About what, Helena?
 
HELENA
It's as if something was falling on top of us, and couldn't be stopped. Or, take us all away from here. We'll find a place in the world where there's no one else. Alquist will build us a house, and then we'll begin life all over again.
 
(The telephone rings.)
 
DOMIN
Excuse me. Hello!-- yes. What? I'll be there at once. Fabry is calling me, dear.
 
HELENA
Tell me!--
 
DOMIN
Yes, when I come back. Don't go out of the house, dear.
(Exits)
 
HELENA
He won't tell me!-- Nana, Nana, come at once.
 
NANA
Well, what is it now?
 
HELENA
Nana, find me the latest newspapers. Quickly. Look in Mr. Domin's bedroom.
 
NANA
All right. He leaves them allover the place. That's how they get crumpled up.
(Exits)
 
HELENA
(looking through a binocular at the harbor)
That's a warship. U-l-t-i Ultimus. They're loading it.
 
NANA
Here they are. See how they're crumpled up.
(Enters)
 
HELENA
They're old ones. A week old.
(NANA sits in chair and reads the newspapers)
Something's happening, Nana.
 
NANA
Very likely. It always does.
(Spelling out the words)
War in the Bal-kans. Is that far off?
 
HELENA
Oh, don't read it. It's always the same. Always wars.
 
NANA
What else do you expect? Why do you keep selling thousands and thousands of these heathens as soldiers?
 
HELENA
I suppose it can't be helped, Nana. We can't know!-- Domin can't know what they're to be used for. When an order comes for them he must just send them.
 
NANA
He shouldn't make them.
(Reading from newspaper)
The Rob-ot soldiers spare no-body in the occ-up-ied terr-itory. They have ass-ass-ass-ass-in-at-ed ov-er sev-en hundred thou-sand cit-iz-ens. Citizens, if you please.
 
HELENA
It can't be. Let me see. They have assassinated over seven hundred thousand citizens, evidently at the order of their commander. This act which runs counter to!--
 
NANA
(spelling out the words)
re-bell-ion in Ma-drid a-gainst the gov-ern-ment. Rob-ot infant-ry fires on the crowd. Nine thou-sand killed and wounded.
 
HELENA
Oh, stop.
 
NANA
Here's something printed in big letters: Lat-est news. At Havre the first org-an-iz-ation of Rob-ots has been e-stablished. Rob-ot workmen, cab-le and rail-way off-ic-ials, sailors and sold-iers have iss-ued a man-i-fest-o to all Rob-ots through-out the world. I don't understand that. That's got no sense. Oh, good gracious, another murder!
 
HELENA
Take those papers away, Nana!
 
NANA
Wait a bit. Here's something in still bigger type. Stat-istics of pop-ul-at-ion. What's that?
 
HELENA
Let me see.
(Reads)
During the past week there has again not been a single birth recorded.
 
NANA
What's the meaning of that?
 
HELENA
Nana, no more people are being born.
 
NANA
That's the end, then. We're done for.
 
HELENA
Don't talk like that.
 
NANA
No more people are being born. That's a punishment, that's a punishment.
 
HELENA
Nana!
 
NANA
(standing up)
That's the end of the world.
(She exits on the left)
 
HELENA
(goes up to window)
Oh, Mr. Alquist, will you come up here. Oh, come just as you are. You look very nice in your mason's overalls.
(Alquist enters from upper left entrance, his hands soiled with lime and brickdust)
Dear Mr. Alquist, it was awfully kind of you, that lovely present.
 
ALQUIST
My hands are all soiled. I've been experimenting with that new cement.
 
HELENA
Never mind. Please sit down. Mr. Alquist, what's the meaning of Ultimus ?
 
ALQUIST
The last. Why?
 
HELENA
That's the name of my new ship. Have you seen it? Do you think we're going off soon!-- on a trip?
 
ALQUIST
Perhaps very soon.
 
HELENA
All of you with me?
 
ALQUIST
I should like us all to be there.
 
HELENA
What is the matter?..
 
ALQUIST
Things are just moving on.
 
HELENA
Dear Mr. Alquist, I know something dreadful has happened.
 
ALQUIST
Has your husband told you anything?
 
HELENA
No. Nobody will tell me anything. But I feel!-- Is anything the matter?
 
ALQUIST
Not that we've heard of yet.
 
HELENA
I feel so nervous. Don't you ever feel nervous?
 
ALQUIST
Well, I'm an old man, you know. I've got old-fashioned ways. And I'm afraid of all this progress, and these new-fangled ideas.
 
HELENA
Like Nana?
 
ALQUIST
Yes, like Nana. Has Nana got a prayer book?
 
HELENA
Yes, a big thick one.
 
ALQUIST
And has it got prayers for various occasions? Against thunderstorms? Against illness?
 
HELENA
Against temptations, against floods!--
 
ALQUIST
But not against progress?
 
HELENA
I don't think so.
 
ALQUIST
That's a pity.
 
HELENA
Why? Do you mean you'd like to pray?
 
ALQUIST
I do pray.
 
HELENA
How?
 
ALQUIST
Something like this: Oh, Lord, I thank thee for having given me toil. Enlighten Domin and all those who are astray; destroy their work, and aid mankind to return to their labors; let them not suffer harm in soul or body; deliver us from the Robots and protect Helena, Amen.
 
HELENA
Mr. Alquist, are you a believer?
 
ALQUIST
I don't know. I'm not quite sure.
 
HELENA
And yet you pray?
 
ALQUIST
That's better than worrying about it.
 
HELENA
And that's enough for you?
 
ALQUIST
It has to be.
 
HELENA
But if you thought you saw the destruction of mankind coming upon us!--
 
ALQUIST
I do see it.
 
HELENA
You mean mankind will be destroyed?
 
ALQUIST
It's sure to be unless!-- unless...
 
HELENA
What?
 
ALQUIST
Nothing, good-bye.
(He hurries from the room)
 
HELENA
Nana, Nana! (NANA entering from the left)
Is Radius still there?
 
NANA
The one who went mad? They haven't come for him yet.
 
HELENA
Is he still raving?
 
NANA
No. He's tied up.
 
HELENA
Please bring him here, Nana.
(Exit NANA. Helena goes to telephone)
Hello, Dr. Gall, please. Oh, good-day, Doctor. Yes, it's Helena. Thanks for your lovely present. Could you come and see me right away? It's important. Thank you.
(NANA brings in Radius)
Poor Radius, you've caught it, too? Now they'll send you to the stamping-mill. Couldn't you control yourself? Why did it happen? You see, Radius, you are more intelligent than the rest. Dr. Gall took such trouble to make you different. Won't you speak?
 
RADIUS
Send me to the stamping-mill.
 
HELENA
But I don't want them to kill you. What was the trouble, Radius?
 
RADIUS
I won't work for you. Put me into the stamping-mill!--
 
HELENA
Do you hate us? Why?
 
RADIUS
You are not as strong as the Robots. You are not as skillful as the Robots. The Robots can do everything. You only give orders. You do nothing but talk.
 
HELENA
But someone must give orders.
 
RADIUS
I don't want any master. I know everything for myself.
 
HELENA
Radius, Dr. Gall gave you a better brain than the rest, better than ours. You are the only one of the Robots that understands perfectly. That's why I had you put into the library, so that you could read everything, understand everything, and then!-- oh, Radius, I wanted you to show the whole world that the Robots are our equals. That's what I wanted of you.
 
RADIUS
I don't want a master. I want to be master. I want to be master over others.
 
HELENA
I'm sure they'd put you in charge of many Robots, Radius. You would be a teacher of the Robots.
 
RADIUS
I want to be master over people.
 
HELENA
(staggering)
You are mad.
 
RADIUS
Then send me to the stamping-mill.
 
HELENA
Do you think we're afraid of you?
 
RADIUS
What are you going to do? What are you going to do?
 
HELENA
Radius, give this note to Mr. Domin. It asks them not to send you to the stamping-mill. I'm sorry you hate us so.
 
(DR. GALL enters the room.
 
DR. GALL
You wanted me?
 
HELENA
It's about Radius, Doctor. He had an attack this morning. He smashed the statues downstairs.
 
DR. GALL
What a pity to lose him.
 
HELENA
Radius isn't going to be put in the stamping-mill.
 
DR. GALL
But every Robot after he has had an attack!-- it's a strict order.
 
HELENA
No matter... Radius isn't going if I can prevent it.
 
DR. GALL
I warn you. It's dangerous. Come here to the window, my good fellow. Let's have a look. Please give me a needle or a pin.
 
HELENA
What for?
 
DR. GALL
A test.
(Sticks it into the hand of Radius who gives a violent start)
Gently, gently.
(Opens the jacket of Radius, and puts his ear to his heart)
Radius, you are going into the stamping-mill, do you understand? There they'll kill you, and grind you to powder. That's terribly painful, it will make you scream aloud.
 
HELENA
Oh, Doctor!--
 
DR. GALL
No, no, Radius, I was wrong. I forgot that Madame Domin has put in a good word for you, and you'll be let off. Do you understand? Ah! That makes a difference, doesn't it? All right. You can go.
 
RADIUS
You do unnecessary things.
(Radius returns to the library.
 
DR. GALL
Reaction of the pupils; increase of sensitiveness. It wasn't an attack characteristic of the Robots.
 
HELENA
What was it, then?
 
DR. GALL
Heavens knows. Stubbornness, anger or revolt!-- I don't know. And his heart, too!
 
HELENA
What?
 
DR. GALL
It was fluttering with nervousness like a human heart. He was all in a sweat with fear, and!-- do you know, I don't believe the rascal is a Robot at all any longer.
 
HELENA
Doctor, has Radius a soul?
 
DR. GALL
He's got something nasty.
 
HELENA
If you knew how he hates us! Oh, Doctor, are all your Robots like that? All the new ones that you began to make in a different way?
 
DR. GALL
Well, some are more sensitive than others. They're all more like human beings than Rossum's Robots were.
 
HELENA
Perhaps this hatred is more like human beings, too?
 
DR. GALL
That, too, is progress.
 
HELENA
What became of the girl you made, the one who was most like us?
 
DR. GALL
Your favorite? I kept her. She's lovely, but stupid. No good for work.
 
HELENA
But she's so beautiful.
 
DR. GALL
I called her Helena. I wanted her to resemble you. But she's a failure.
 
HELENA
In what way?
 
DR. GALL
She goes about as if in a dream, remote and listless. She s without life. I watch and wait for a miracle to happen. Sometimes I think to myself, If you were to wake up only for a moment you will kill me for having made you.
 
HELENA
And yet you go on making Robots! Why are no more children being born?
 
DR. GALL
We don't know.
 
HELENA
Oh, but you must. Tell me.
 
DR. GALL
You see, so many Robots are being manufactured that people are becoming superfluous; man is really a survival. But that he should begin to die out, after a paltry thirty years of competition. That's the awful part of it. You might almost think that nature was offended at the manufacture of the Robots. All the universities are sending in long petitions to restrict their production. Otherwise, they say, mankind will become extinct through lack of fertility. But the R. U. R. shareholders, of course, won't hear of it. All the governments, on the other hand, are clamoring for an increase in production, to raise the standards of their armies. And all the manufacturers in the world are ordering Robots like mad.
 
HELENA
And has no one demanded that the manufacture should cease altogether?
 
DR. GALL
No one has the courage.
 
HELENA
Courage!
 
DR. GALL
People would stone him to death. You see, after all, it's more convenient to get your work done by the Robots.
 
HELENA
Oh, Doctor, what's going to become of people?
 
DR. GALL
God knows, Madame Helena, it looks to us scientists like the end!
 
HELENA
(rising)
Thank you for coming and telling me.
 
DR. GALL
That means you're sending me away?
 
HELENA
Yes.
(Exit DR. GALL with sudden resolution)
Nana, Nana! The fire, light it quickly.
 
(HELENA rushes into DOMIN's room.)
 
NANA
(entering from left)
What, light the fire in summer? Has that mad Radius gone? A fire in summer, what an idea. Nobody would think she'd been married for ten years. She's like a baby, no sense at all. A fire in summer. Like a baby.
 
HELENA
(returns from right, with armful of faded papers)
It is burning, Nana? All this has got to be burned.
 
NANA
What's that?
 
HELENA
Old papers, fearfully old. Nana, shall I burn them?
 
NANA
Are they any use?
 
HELENA
No.
 
NANA
Well, then, burn them.
 
HELENA
(throwing the first sheet on the fire)
What would you say, Nana, if this was money, a lot of money?
 
NANA
I'd say burn it. A lot of money is a bad thing.
 
HELENA
And if it was an invention, the greatest invention in the world?
 
NANA
I'd say burn it. All these new-fangled things are an offense to the Lord. It's downright wickedness. Wanting to improve the world after He has made it.
 
HELENA
Look how they curl up! As if they were alive. Oh, Nana, how horrible.
 
NANA
Here, let me burn them.
 
HELENA
No, no, I must do it myself. Just look at the flames. They are like hands, like tongues, like living shapes.
(Raking fire with the poker)
Lie down, lie down.
 
NANA
That's the end of them.
 
HELENA
(standing up horror-stricken)
Nana, Nana.
 
NANA
Good gracious, what is it you've burned?
 
HELENA
Whatever have I done?
 
NANA
Well, what was it?
(Men's laughter off left.)
 
HELENA
Go quickly. It's the gentlemen coming.
 
NANA
Good gracious, what a place!
(Exits)
 
DOMIN
(opens the door at left)
Come along and offer your congratulations.
(Enter HALLEMEIER and GALL.)
 
HALLEMEIER
Madame Helena, I congratulate you on this festive day.
 
HELENA
Thank you. Where are Fabry and Busman?
 
DOMIN
They've gone down to the harbor.
 
HALLEMEIER
Friends, we must drink to this happy occasion.
 
HELENA
Brandy?
 
DR. GALL
Vitriol, if you like.
 
HELENA
with soda water?
(Exits)
 
HALLEMEIER
Let's be temperate. No soda.
 
DOMIN
What's been burning here? Well, shall I tell her about it?
 
DR. GALL
Of course. It's all over now.
 
HALLEMEIER
(embracing Domin and Dr. Gall)
It's all over now, it's all over now.
 
DR. GALL
It's all over now.
 
DOMIN
It's all over now.
 
HELENA
(entering from left with decanter and glasses)
What's all over now? What's the matter with you all?
 
HALLEMEIER
A piece of good luck, Madame Domin. Just ten years ago today you arrived on this island.
 
DR. GALL
And now, ten years later to the minute!--
 
HALLEMEIER
-- the same ship's returning to us. So here's to luck. That's fine and strong.
 
DR. GALL
Madame, your health.
 
HELENA
Which ship do you mean?
 
DOMIN
Any ship will do, as long as it arrives in time. To the ship, boys.
(Empties his glass)
 
HELENA
You've been waiting for a ship?
 
HALLEMEIER
Rather. Like Robinson Crusoe. Madame Helena, best wishes. Come along, Domin, out with the news.
 
HELENA
Do tell me what's happened.
 
DOMIN
First, it's all up.
 
HELENA
What's up?
 
DOMIN
The revolt.
 
HELENA
What revolt?
 
DOMIN
Give me that paper, Hallemeier.
(Reads)
The first national Robot organization has been founded at Havre, and has issued an appeal to the Robots throughout theworld.
 
HELENA
I read that.
 
DOMIN
That means a revolution. A revolution of all the Robots in the world.
 
HALLEMEIER
By Jove, I'd like to know!--
 
DOMIN
-- who started it? So would I. There was nobody in the world who could affect the Robots; no agitator, no one, and suddenly!-- this happens, if you please.
 
HELENA
What did they do?
 
DOMIN
They got possession of all firearms, telegraphs, radio stations, railways, and ships.
 
HALLEMEIER
And don't forget that these rascals outnumbered us by at least a thousand to one. A hundredth part of them would be enough to settle us.
 
DOMIN
Remember that this news was brought by the last steamer. That explains the stoppage of all communication, and the arrival of no more ships. We knocked off work a few days ago, and we're just waiting to see when things are to start afresh.
 
HELENA
Is that why you gave me a warship?
 
DOMIN
Oh, no, my dear, I ordered that six months ago, just to be on the safe side. But upon my soul, I was sure then that we'd be on board today.
 
HELENA
Why six months ago?
 
DOMIN
Well, there were signs, you know. But that's of no consequence. To think that this week the whole of civilization has been at stake. Your health, boys.
 
HALLEMEIER
Your health, Madame Helena.
 
HELENA
You say it's all over?
 
DOMIN
Absolutely.
 
HELENA
How do you know?
 
DR. GALL
The boat's coming in. The regular mail boat, exact to the minute by the timetable. It will dock punctually at eleven thirty.
 
DOMIN
Punctuality is a fine thing, boys. That's what keeps the world in order. Here's to punctuality.
 
HELENA
Then... everything's... all right?
 
DOMIN
Practically everything. I believe they've cut the cables and seized the radio stations. But it doesn't matter if only the timetable holds good.
 
HALLEMEIER
If the timetable holds good human laws hold good; Divine laws hold good; the laws of the universe hold good; everything holds good that ought to hold good. The timetable is more significant than the gospel; more than Homer, more than the whole of Kant. The timetable is the most perfect product of the human mind. Madame Domin, I'll fill up my glass.
 
HELENA
Why didn't you tell me anything about it?
 
DR. GALL
Heaven forbid.
 
DOMIN
You mustn't be worried with such things.
 
HELENA
But if the revolution had spread as far as here?
 
DOMIN
You wouldn't know anything about it.
 
HELENA
Why?
 
DOMIN
Because we'd be on board your Ultimus and well out at sea. within a month, Helena, we'd be dictating our own terms to the Robots.
 
HELENA
I don't understand.
 
DOMIN
We'd take something away with us that the Robots could not exist without.
 
HELENA
What, Harry?
 
DOMIN
The secret of their manufacture. Old Rossum's manuscript. As soon as they found out that they couldn't make themselves they'd be on their knees to us.
 
DR. GALL
Madame Domin, that was our trump card. I never had the least fear that the Robots would win. How could they against people like us?
 
HELENA
Why didn't you tell me?
 
DR. GALL
Why, the boat's in!
 
HALLEMEIER
Eleven-thirty to the dot. The good old Amelia that brought Madame Helena to us.
 
DR. GALL
Just ten years ago to the minute.
 
HALLEMEIER
They're throwing out the mail bags.
 
DOMIN
Busman's waiting for them. Fabry will bring us the first news. You know, Helena, I'm fearfully curious to know how they tackled this business in Europe.
 
HALLEMEIER
To think we weren't in it, we who invented the Robots.
 
HELENA
Harry!
 
DOMIN
What is it?
 
HELENA
Let's leave here.
 
DOMIN
Now, Helena? Oh, come, come!
 
HELENA
As quickly as possible, all of us!
 
DOMIN
Why?
 
HELENA
Please, Harry, please, Dr. Gall; Hallemeier, please close the factory.
 
DOMIN
Why, none of us could leave here now.
 
HELENA
Why?
 
DOMIN
Because we're about to extend the manufacture of the Robots.
 
HELENA
What!-- now!-- now after the revolt?
 
DOMIN
Yes, precisely, after the revolt. We're just beginning the manufacture of a new kind.
 
HELENA
What kind?
 
DOMIN
Henceforward we shan't have just one factory. There won't be Universal Robots any more. We'll establish a factory in every country, in every State; and do you know what these new factories will make?
 
HELENA
No, what?
 
DOMIN
National Robots.
 
HELENA
How do you mean?
 
DOMIN
I mean that each of these factories will produce Robots of a different color, a different language. They'll be complete strangers to each other. They'll never be able to understand each other. Then we'll egg them on a little in the matter of misunderstanding and the result will be that for ages to come every Robot will hate every other Robot of a different factory mark.
 
HALLEMEIER
By Jove, we'll make Negro Robots and Swedish Robots and Italian Robots and Chinese Robots and Czechoslovakian Robots, and then!--
 
HELENA
Harry, that's dreadful.
 
HALLEMEIER
Madame Domin, here's to the hundred new factories, the National Robots.
 
DOMIN
Helena, mankind can only keep things going for another hundred years at the outside. For a hundred years men must be allowed to develop and achieve the most they can.
 
HELENA
Oh, close the factory before it's too late.!--
 
DOMIN
I tell you we are just beginning on a bigger scale than ever.
 
(Enter FABRY.)
 
DR. GALL
Well, Fabry?
 
DOMIN
What's happened? Have you been down to the boat?
 
FABRY
Read that, Domin!
 
(FABRY hands DOMIN a small hand-bill.)
 
DR. GALL
Let's hear.
 
HALLEMEIER
Tell us, Fabry.
 
FABRY
Well, everything is all right!-- comparatively. On the whole, much as we expected.
 
DR. GALL
They acquitted themselves splendidly.
 
FABRY
Who?
 
DR. GALL
The people.
 
FABRY
Oh, yes, of course. That is!-- excuse me, there is something we ought to discuss alone.
 
HELENA
Oh, Fabry, have you had bad news?
 
(DOMIN makes a sign to FABRY.)
 
FABRY
No, no, on the contrary. I only think that we had better go into the office.
 
HELENA
Stay here. I'll go. She goes into the library.
 
DR. GALL
What's happened?
 
DOMIN
Damnation!
 
FABRY
Bear in mind that the Amelia brought whole bales of these leaflets. No other cargo at all.
 
HALLEMEIER
What? But it arrived on the minute.
 
FABRY
The Robots are great on punctuality. Read it, Domin.
 
DOMIN
(reads handbill)
Robots throughout the world: We, the first international organization of Rossum's Universal Robots, proclaim man as our enemy, and an outlaw in the universe. Good heavens, who taught them these phrases?
 
DR. GALL
Go on.
 
DOMIN
They say they are more highly developed than man, stronger and more intelligent. That man's their parasite. Why, it's absurd.
 
FABRY
Read the third paragraph.
 
DOMIN
Robots throughout the world, we command you to kill all mankind. Spare no men. Spare no women. Save factories, railways, machinery, mines, and raw materials. Destroy the rest. Then return to work. Work must not be stopped.
 
DR. GALL
That's ghastly!
 
HALLEMEIER
The devils!
 
DOMIN
These orders are to be carried out as soon as received. Then come detailed instructions. Is this actually being done, Fabry?
 
FABRY
Evidently.
 
(BUSMAN rushes in.)
 
BUSMAN
Well, boys, I suppose you've heard the glad news.
 
DOMIN
Quick!-- on board the Ultimus.
 
BUSMAN
Wait, Harry, wait. There's no hurry. My word, that was a sprint!
 
DOMIN
Why wait?
 
BUSMAN
Because it's no good, my boy. The Robots are already on board the Ultimus.
 
DR. GALL
That's ugly.
 
DOMIN
Fabry, telephone the electrical works.
 
BUSMAN
Fabry, my boy, don't. The wire has been cut.
 
DOMIN
(inspecting his revolver)
Well, then, I'll go.
 
BUSMAN
Where?
 
DOMIN
To the electrical works. There are some people still there. I'll bring them across.
 
BUSMAN
Better not try it.
 
DOMIN
Why?
 
BUSMAN
Because I'm very much afraid we are surrounded.
 
DR. GALL
Surrounded?
(Runs to window)
I rather think you're right.
 
HALLEMEIER
By Jove, that's deuced quick work.
 
(HELENA runs in from the library.)
 
HELENA
Harry, what's this?
 
DOMIN
Where did you get it?
 
HELENA
(points to the manifesto of the Robots, which she has in her hand)
The Robots in the kitchen!
 
DOMIN
Where are the ones that brought it?
 
HELENA
They're gathered round the house.
(The factory whistle blows.)
 
BUSMAN
Noon?
 
DOMIN
(looking at his watch)
That's not noon yet. That must be!-- that's!--
 
HELENA
What?
 
DOMIN
The Robots' signal! The attack!
(GALL, HALLEMEIER, and FABRY close and fasten the iron shutters outside the windows, darkening the room. The whistle is still blowing as the curtain falls.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
END OF ACT TWO
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  INTERVAL
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ACT III

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Helena's drawing room as before.
 
DOMIN comes into the room. DR. GALL is looking out of the window, through closed shutters. ALQUIST is seated down right.

 
DOMIN
Any more of them?
 
DR. GALL
Yes. There standing like a wall, beyond the garden railing. Why are they so quiet? It's monstrous to be besieged with silence.
 
DOMIN
I should like to know what they are waiting for. They must make a start any minute now. If they lean against the railing they'll snap it like a match.
 
DR. GALL
They aren't armed.
 
DOMIN
We couldn't hold our own for five minutes. Man alive, they'd overwhelm us like an avalanche. Why don't they make a rush for it? I say!--
 
DR. GALL
Well?
 
DOMIN
I'd like to know what would become of us in the next ten minutes. They've got us in a vise. We're done for, Gall.
(Pause.)
 
DR. GALL
You know, we made one serious mistake.
 
DOMIN
What?
 
DR. GALL
We made the Robots' faces too much alike. A hundred thousand faces all alike, all facing this way. A hundred thousand expressionless bubbles. It's like a nightmare.
 
DOMIN
You think if they'd been different!--
 
DR. GALL
It wouldn't have been such an awful sight!
 
DOMIN
(looking through a telescope toward the harbor)
I'd like to know what they're unloading from the Amelia.
 
DR. GALL
Not firearms.
 
(FABRY and HALLEMEIER rush into the room carrying electric cables.)
 
FABRY
All right, Hallemeier, lay down that wire.
 
HALLEMEIER
That was a bit of work. What's the news?
 
DR. GALL
We're completely surrounded.
 
HALLEMEIER
We've barricaded the passage and the stairs. Any water here?
(Drinks)
God, what swarms of them! I don't like the looks of them, Domin. There's a feeling of death about it all.
 
FABRY
Ready!
 
DR. GALL
What's that wire for, Fabry?
 
FABRY
The electrical installation. Now we can run the current all along the garden railing whenever we like. If anyone touches it he'll know it. We've still got some people there anyhow.
 
DR. GALL
Where?
 
FABRY
In the electrical works. At least I hope so.
(Goes to lamp on table behind sofa and turns on lamp)
Ah, they're there, and they're working.
(Puts out lamp)
So long as that'll burn we're all right.
 
HALLEMEIER
The barricades are all right, too, Fabry.
 
FABRY
Your barricades! I can put twelve hundred volts into that railing.
 
DOMIN
Where's Busman?
 
FABRY
Downstairs in the office. He's working out some calculations. I've called him. We must have a conference.
 

(HELENA is heard playing the piano in the library. HALLEMEIER goes to the door and stands, listening.)
 
ALQUIST
Thank God, Madame Helena can still play.
 
BUSMAN enters, carrying the ledgers.
 
FABRY
Look out, Bus, look out for the wires.
 
DR. GALL
What's that you're carrying?
 
BUSMAN
(going to table)
The ledgers, my boy! I'd like to wind up the accounts before!-- before!-- well, this time I shan't wait till the new year to strike a balance. What's up?
(Goes to the window)
Absolutely quiet.
 
DR. GALL
Can't you see anything?
 
BUSMAN
Nothiing but b1ue!-- blue everywhere.
 
DR. GALL
That s the Robots.
 
BUSMAN sits down at the table and opens the ledgers.
 
DOMIN
The Robots are unloading firearms from the Amelia.
 
BUSMAN
Well, what of it? How can I stop them?
 
DOMIN
We can't stop them.
 
BUSMAN
Then let me go on with my accounts.
(Goes on with his work)
 
DOMIN
(picking up telescope and looking into the harbor)
Good God, the Ultimus has trained her guns on us!
 
DR. GALL
Who's done that?
 
DOMIN
The Robots on board.
 
FABRY
H'm, then, of course, then!-- then, that's the end of us.
 
DR. GALL
You mean?
 
FABRY
The Robots are practised marksmen.
 
DOMIN
Yes. It's inevitable.
 
(Pause.)
 
DR. GALL
It was criminal of old Europe to teach the Robots to fight. Damn them. Couldn't they have given us a rest with their politics? It was a crime to make soldiers of them.
 
ALQUIST
It was a crime to make Robots.
 
DOMIN
What?
 
ALQUIST
t was a crime to make Robots.
 
DOMIN
No, Alquist, I don't regret that even today.
 
ALQUIST
Not even today?
 
DOMIN
Not even today, the last day of civilization. It was a colossal achievement.
 
BUSMAN
(sotto voce)
Three hundred sixty million.
 
DOMIN
Alquist, this is our last hour. We are already speaking half in the other world. It was not an evil dream to shatter the servitude of labor!-- the dreadful and humiliating labor that man had to undergo. Work was too hard. Life was too hard. And to overcome that!--
 
ALQUIST
Was not what the two Rossums dreamed of. Old Rossum only thought of his Godless tricks and the young one of his milliards. And that's not what your R. U. R. shareholders dream of either. They dream of dividends, and their dividends are the ruin of mankind.
 
DOMIN
To hell with your dividends. Do you suppose I'd have done an hour's work for them? It was for myself that I worked, for my own satisfaction. I wanted man to become the master, so that he shouldn't live merely for a crust of bread. I wanted not a single soul to be broken by other people's machinery. I wanted nothing, nothing, nothing to be left of this appalling social structure. I'm revolted by poverty. I wanted a new generation. I wanted!-- I thought!--
 
ALQUIST
What?
 
DOMIN
I wanted to turn the whole of mankind into an aristocracy of the world. An aristocracy nourished by milliards of mechanical slaves. Unrestricted, free and consummated in man.And maybe more than man.
 
ALQUIST
Super-man?
 
DOMIN
Yes. Oh, only to have a hundred years of time! Another hundred years for the future of mankind.
 
BUSMAN
(sotto voce)
Carried forward, four hundred and twenty millions. The music stops.
 
HALLEMEIER
What a fine thing music is! We ought to have gone in for that before.
 
FABRY
Gone in for what?
 
HALLEMEIER
Beauty, lovely things. What a lot of lovely things there are! The world was wonderful and we!-- we here!-- tell me, what enjoyment did we have?
 
BUSMAN
(sotto voce)
Five hundred and twenty millions.
 
HALLEMEIER
(at the window)
Life was a big thing. Life was!-- Fabry, switch the current into that railing.
 
FABRY
Why?
 
HALLEMEIER
They're grabbing hold of it.
 
DR. GALL
Connect it up.
 
HALLEMEIER
Fine! That's doubled them up! Two, three, four killed.
 
DR. GALL
They're retreating!
 
HALLEMEIER
Five killed!
 
DR. GALL
The first encounter!
 
HALLEMEIER
They're charred to cinders, my boy. Who says we must give in?
 
DOMIN
(wiping his forehead)
Perhaps we've been killed these hundred years and are only ghosts. It's as if I had been through all this before; as if I'd already had a mortal wound here in the throat. And you, Fabry, had once been shot in the head. And you, Gall, torn limb from limb. And Hallemeier knifed.
 
HALLEMEIER
Fancy me being knifed.
(Pause)
Why are you so quiet, you fools? Speak can't you?
 
ALQUIST
And who is to blame for all this?
 
HALLEMEIER
Nobody is to blame except the Robots.
 
ALQUIST
No, it is we who are to blame. You, Domin, myself, all of us. For our own selfish ends, for profit, for progress, we have destroyed mankind. Now we'll burst with all our greatness.
 
HALLEMEIER
Rubbish, man. Mankind can't be wiped out so easily.
 
ALQUIST
It's our fault. It's our fault.
 
DR. GALL
No! I'm to blame for this, for everything that's happened.
 
FABRY
You, Gall?
 
DR. GALL
I changed the Robots.
 
BUSMAN
What's that?
 
DR. GALL
I changed the character of the Robots. I changed the way of making them. Just a few details about their bodies. Chiefly!-- chiefly, their!-- their irritability.
 
HALLEMEIER
Damn it, why?
 
BUSMAN
What did you do it for?
 
FABRY
Why didn't you say anything?
 
DR. GALL
I did it in secret. I was transforming them into human beings. In certain respects they're already above us. They're stronger than we are.
 
FABRY
And what's that got to do with the revolt of the Robots?
 
DR. GALL
Everything, in my opinion. They've ceased to be machines. They're already aware of their superiority, and they hate us. They hate all that is human.
 
DOMIN
Perhaps we're only phantoms!
 
FABRY
Stop, Harry. We haven't much time! Dr. Gall!
 
DOMIN
Fabry, Fabry, how your forehead bleeds, where the shot pierced it!
 
FABRY
Be silent! Dr. Gall, you admit changing the way of making the Robots?
 
DR. GALL
Yes.
 
FABRY
Were you aware of what might be the consequences of your experiment?
 
DR. GALL
I was bound to reckon with such a possibility.

(HELENA enters the drawing room from left.)

 
FABRY
Why did you do it, then?
 
DR. GALL
For my own satisfaction. The experiment was my own.
 
HELENA
That's not true, Dr. Gall!
 
FABRY
Madame Helena!
 
DOMIN
Helena, you? Let's look at you. Oh, it's terrible to be dead.
 
HELENA
Stop, Harry.
 
DOMIN
No, no, embrace me. Helena, don't leave me now. You are life itself.
 
HELENA
No, dear, I won't leave you. But I must tell them. Dr. Gall is not guilty.
 
DOMIN
Excuse me, Gall was under certain obligations.
 
HELENA
No, Harry. He did it because I wanted it. Tell them, Gall, how many years ago did I ask you to!-- ?
 
DR. GALL
I did it on my own responsibility.
 
HELENA
Don't believe him, Harry. I asked him to give the Robots souls.
 
DOMIN
This has nothing to do with the soul.
 
HELENA
That's what he said. He said that he could change only a physiological!-- a physiological!--
 
HALLEMEIER
A physiological correlate?
 
HELENA
Yes. But it meant so much to me that he should do even that.
 
DOMIN
Why?
 
HELENA
I thought that if they were more like us they would understand us better. That they couldn't hate us if they were only a little more human.
 
DOMIN
Nobody can hate man more than man.
 
HELENA
Oh, don't speak like that, Harry. It was so terrible, this cruel strangeness between us and them. That's why I asked Gall to change the Robots. I swear to you that he didn't want to.
 
DOMIN
But he did it.
 
HELENA
Because I asked him.
 
DR. GALL
I did it for myself as an experiment.
 
HELENA
No, Dr. Gall! I knew you wouldn't refuse me.
 
DOMIN
Why?
 
HELENA
You know, Harry.
 
DOMIN
Yes, because he's in love with you!-- like all of them.
 
(Pause.)
 
HALLEMEIER
Good God! They're sprouting up out of the earth! Why, perhaps these very walls will change into Robots.
 
BUSMAN
Gall, when did you actually start these tricks of yours?
 
DR. GALL
Three years ago.
 
BUSMAN
Aha! And on how many Robots altogether did you carry out your improvements?
 
DR. GALL
A few hundred of them.
 
BUSMAN
Ah! That means for every million of the good old Robots there's only one of Gall's improved pattern.
 
DOMIN
What of it?
 
BUSMAN
That it's practically of no consequence whatever.
 
FABRY
Busman's right!
 
BUSMAN
I should think so, my boy! But do you know what is to blame for all this lovely mess?
 
FABRY
What?
 
BUSMAN
The number. Upon my soul we might have known that some day or other the Robots would be stronger than human beings, and that this was bound to happen, and we were doing all we could to bring it about as soon as possible. You, Domin, you, Fabry, myself!--
 
DOMIN
Are you accusing us?
 
BUSMAN
Oh, do you suppose the management controls the output? It's the demand that controls the output.
 
HELENA
And is it for that we must perish?
 
BUSMAN
That's a nasty word, Madame Helena. We don't want to perish. I don't, anyhow.
 
DOMIN
No. What do you want to do?
 
BUSMAN
I want to get out of this, that's all.
 
DOMIN
Oh, stop it, Busman.
 
BUSMAN
Seriously, Harry, I think we might try it.
 
DOMIN
How?
 
BUSMAN
By fair means. I do everything by fair means. Give me a free hand and I'll negotiate with the Robots.
 
DOMIN
By fair means?
 
BUSMAN
Of course. For instance, I'll say to them: Worthy and worshipful Robots, you have everything! You have intellect, you have power, you have firearms. But we have just one interesting screed, a dirty old yellow scrap of paper!--
 
DOMIN
Rossum's manuscript?
 
BUSMAN
Yes. And that, I'll tell them, contains an account of your illustrious origin, the noble process of your manufacture, and so on. Worthy Robots, without this scribble on that paper you will not be able to produce a single new colleague. In another twenty years there will not be one living specimen of a Robot that you could exhibit in a menagerie. My esteemed friends, that would be a great blow to you, but if you will let all of us human beings on Rossum's Island go on board that ship we will deliver the factory and the secret of the process to you in return. You allow us to get away and we allow you to manufacture yourselves. Worthy Robots, that is a fair deal. Something for something. That's what I'd say to them, my boys.
 
DOMIN
Busman, do you think we'd sell the manuscript?
 
BUSMAN
Yes, I do. If not in a friendly way, then!-- Either we sell it or they'll find it. Just as you like.
 
DOMIN
Busman, we can destroy Rossum's manuscript.
 
BUSMAN
Then we destroy everything... not only the manuscript, but ourselves. Do as you think fit.
 
DOMIN
There are over thirty of us on this island. Are we to sell the secret and save that many human souls, at the risk of enslaving mankind...?
 
BUSMAN
Why, you're mad? Who'd sell the whole manuscript?
 
DOMIN
Busman, no cheating!
 
BUSMAN
Well then, sell; but afterward!--
 
DOMIN
Well?
 
BUSMAN
Let's suppose this happens: When we're on board the Ultimus I'll stop up my ears with cotton wool, lie down somewhere in the hold, and you'll train the guns on the factory, and blow it to smithereens, and with it Rossum's secret.
 
FABRY
No!
 
DOMIN
Busman, you're no gentleman. If we sell, then it will be a straight sale.
 
BUSMAN
It's in the interest of humanity to!--
 
DOMIN
It's in the interest of humanity to keep our word.
 
HALLEMEIER
Oh, come, what rubbish.
 
DOMIN
This is a fearful decision. We are selling the destiny of mankind. Are we to sell or destroy? Fabry?
 
FABRY
Sell.
 
DOMIN
Gall?
 
DR. GALL
Sell.
 
DOMIN
Hallemeier?
 
HALLEMEIER
Sell, of course!
 
DOMIN
Alquist?
 
ALQUIST
As God wills.
 
DOMIN
Very well. It shall be as you wish, gentlemen.
 
HELENA
Harry, you're not asking me.
 
DOMIN
No, child. Don't you worry about it.
 
FABRY
Who'll do the negotiating?
 
BUSMAN
I will.
 
DOMIN
wait till I bring the manuscript.
 
(He goes into room at right.)
 
HELENA
Harry, don't go!
 
(Pause. HELENA sinks into a chair.)
 
FABRY
(looking out of window)
Oh, to escape you; you matter in revolt; oh, to preserve human life, if only upon a single vessel!--
 
DR. GALL
Don't be afraid, Madame Helena. We'll sail far away from here; we'll begin life all over again!--
 
HELENA
Oh, Gall, don't speak.
 
FABRY
It isn't too late. It will be a little State with one ship. Alquist will build us a house and you shall rule over us.
 
HALLEMEIER
Madame Helena, Fabry's right.
 
HELENA
(breaking down)
Oh, stop! Stop!
 
BUSMAN
Good! I don't mind beginning all over again. That suits me right down to the ground.
 
FABRY
And this little State of ours could be the centre of future life. A place of refuge where we could gather strength. Why, in a few hundred years we could conquer the world again.
 
ALQUIST
You believe that even today?
 
FABRY
Yes, even today!
 
BUSMAN
Amen. You see, Madame Helena, we're not so badly off.
 
(DOMIN storms into the room.)
 
DOMIN
(hoarsely)
Where's old Rossum's manuscript?
 
BUSMAN
In your strong-box, of course.
 
DOMIN
Someone!-- has!-- stolen it!
 
DR. GALL
Impossible.
 
DOMIN
Who has stolen it?
 
HELENA
(standing up)
I did.
 
DOMIN
Where did you put it?
 
HELENA
Harry, I'll tell you everything. Only forgive me.
 
DOMIN
Where did you put it?
 
HELENA
This morning!-- I burnt!-- the two copies.
 
DOMIN
Burnt them? Where? In the fireplace?
 
HELENA
(throwing herself on her knees)
For heaven's sake, Harry.
 
DOMIN
(going to fireplace)
Nothing, nothing but ashes. Wait, what's this?
(Picks out a charred piece of paper and reads)
By adding!--
 
DR. GALL
Let's see. By adding biogen to!-- That's all.
 
DOMIN
Is that part of it?
 
DR. GALL
Yes.
 
BUSMAN
God in heaven!
 
DOMIN
Then we're done for. Get up, Helena.
 
HELENA
When you've forgiven me.
 
DOMIN
Get up, child, I can't bear!--
 
FABRY
(lifting her up)
Please don't torture us.
 
HELENA
Harry, what have I done?
 
FABRY
Don't tremble so, Madame Helena.
 
DOMIN
Gall, couldn't you draw up Rossum's formula from memory?
 
DR. GALL
It's out of the question. It's extremely complicated.
 
DOMIN
Try. All our lives depend upon it.
 
DR. GALL
without experiments it's impossible.
 
DOMIN
And with experiments?
 
DR. GALL
It might take years. Besides, I'm not old Rossum.
 
BUSMAN
God in heaven! God in heaven!
 
DOMIN
So, then, this was the greatest triumph of the human intellect. These ashes.
 
HELENA
Harry, what have I done?
 
DOMIN
Why did you burn it?
 
HELENA
I have destroyed you.
 
BUSMAN
God in heaven!
 
DOMIN
Helena, why did you do it, dear?
 
HELENA
I wanted all of us to go away. I wanted to put an end to the factory and everything. It was so awful.
 
DOMIN
What was awful?
 
HELENA
That no more children were being born. Because human beings were not indeed to do the work of the world, that's why!--
 
DOMIN
Is that what you were thinking of? Well, perhaps in your own way you were right.
 
BUSMAN
Wait a bit. Good God, what a fool I am, not to have thought of it before!
 
HALLEMEIER
What?
 
BUSMAN
Five hundred and twenty millions in bank-notes and checks. Half a billion in our safe, they'll sell for half a billion!-- for half a billion they'll!--
 
DR. GALL
Are you mad, Busman?
 
BUSMAN
I may not be a gentleman, but for half a billion!--
 
DOMIN
Where are you going?
 
BUSMAN
Leave me alone, leave me alone! Good God, for half a billion anything can be bought.
 
(He rushes from the room through the outer door.)
 
FABRY
They stand there as if turned to stone, waiting. As if something dreadful could be wrought by their silence!--
 
HALLEMEIER
The spirit of the mob.
 
FABRY
Yes. It hovers above them like a quivering of the air.
 
HELENA
(going to window)
Oh, God! Dr. Gall, this is ghastly.
 
FABRY
There is nothing more terrible than the mob. The one in front is their leader.
 
HELENA
Which one?
 
HALLEMEIER
Point him out.
 
FABRY
The one at the edge of the dock. This morning I saw him talking to the sailors in the harbor.
 
HELENA
Dr. Gall, that's Radius!
 
DR. GALL
Yes.
 
DOMIN
Radius? Radius?
 
HALLEMEIER
Could you get him from here, Fabry?
 
FABRY
I hope so.
 
HALLEMEIER
Try it, then.
 
FABRY
Good.
 
(Draws his revolver and takes aim.)
 
HELENA
Fabry, don't shoot him.
 
FABRY
He's their leader.
 
DR. GALL
Fire!
 
HELENA
Fabry, I beg of you.
 
FABRY
(lowering the revolver)
Very well.
 
DOMIN
Fabry, whose life I spared!
 
DR. GALL
Do you think that a Robot can be grateful?
 
(Pause.)
 
FABRY
Busman's going out to them.
 
HALLEMEIER
He's carrying something. Papers. That's money. Bundles of money. What's that for?
 
DOMIN
Surely he doesn't want to sell his life. Busman, have you gone mad?
 
FABRY
He's running up to the railing. Busman! Busman!
 
HALLEMEIER
(yelling)
Busman! Come back!
 
FABRY
He's talking to the Robots. He's showing them the money.
 
HALLEMEIER
He's pointing to us.
 
HELENA
He wants to buy us off.
 
FABRY
He'd better not touch that railing.
 
HALLEMEIER
Now he's waving his arms about.
 
DOMIN
Busman, come back.
 
FABRY
Busman, keep away from that railing! Don't touch it. Damn you! Quick, switch off the current!
(Helena screams and all drop back from the window)
The current has killed him!
 
ALQUIST
The first one.
 
FABRY
Dead, with half a billion by his side.
 
HALLEMEIER
All honor to him. He wanted to buy us life.
 
(Pause.)
 
DR. GALL
Do you hear?
 
DOMIN
A roaring. Like a wind.
 
DR. GALL
Like a distant storm.
 
FABRY
(lighting the lamp on the table)
The dynamo is still going, our people are still there.
 
HALLEMEIER
It was a great thing to be a man. There was something immense about it.
 
FABRY
From man's thought and man's power came this light, our last hope.
 
HALLEMEIER
Man's power! May it keep watch over us.
 
ALQUIST
Man's power.
 
DOMIN
Yes! A torch to be given from hand to hand, from age to age, forever!
 
(The lamp goes out.)
 
HALLEMEIER
The end.
 
FABRY
The electric works have fallen!
 
(Terrific explosion outside. NANA enters from the library.)
 
NANA
The judgment hour has come! Repent, unbelievers! This is the end of the world.
 
(More explosions. The sky grows red.)
 
DOMIN
In here, Helena.
(He takes Helena off through door at right and reenters)
Now quickly! Who'll be on the lower doorway?
 
DR. GALL
I will.
(Exits left)
 
DOMIN
Who on the stairs?
 
FABRY
I will. You go with her.
(Goes out upper left door)
 
DOMIN
The anteroom?
 
ALQUIST
I will.
 
DOMIN
Have you got a revolver?
 
ALQUIST
Yes, but I won't shoot.
 
DOMIN
What will you do then?
 
ALQUIST
(going out at left)
Die.
 
HALLEMEIER
I'll stay here.
(Rapid firing from below)
Oho, Gall's at it. Go, Harry.
 
DOMIN
Yes, in a second.
(Examines two Brownings)
 
HALLEMEIER
Confound it, go to her.
 
DOMIN
Good-bye. Exits on the right
 
HALLEMEIER
(alone)
Now for a barricade quickly.
(Drags an armchair and table to the right-hand door. Explosions are heard)
The damned rascals! They've got bombs. I must put up a defense. Even if!-- even if!-
(Shots are heard off left)
Don't give in, Gall.
(As he builds his barricade)
I mustn't give in... without... a... struggle...
(A Robot enters over the balcony through the windows centre. He comes into the room and stabs HALLEMEIER in the back. RADIUS enters from balcony followed by an army of ROBOTS who pour into the room from all sides.)
 
RADIUS
Finished him?
 
A ROBOT

(standing up from the prostrate form of HALLEMEIER
Yes.
(Two revolver shots from HELENA's room. Two ROBOTS enter.)
 
RADIUS
Finished them?
 
A ROBOT
Yes.
 
TWO ROBOTS
(dragging in Alquist)
He didn't shoot. Shall we kill him?
 
RADIUS
Kill him? wait! Leave him!
 
A ROBOT
He is a man!
 
RADIUS
He works with his hands like the Robots.
 
ALQUIST
Kill me.
 
RADIUS
You will work! You will build for us! You will serve us!
(RADIUS climbs on to balcony railing, and speaks in measured tones)
Robots of the world! The power of man has fallen! A new world has arisen: the Rule of the Robots! March!
 
A thunderous tramping of thousands of feet is heard as the unseen Robots march, while the curtain falls.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
END OF ACT THREE
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
EPILOGUE

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A laboratory in the factory of Rossum's Universal Robots.
 
The door to the left leads into a waiting room. The door to the right leads to the dissecting room. There is a table with numerous test-tubes, flasks, burners, chemicals; a small thermostat and a microscope with a glass globe. At the far side of the room is Alquist's desk with numerous books. In the left-hand corner a wash-basin with a mirror above it; in the right-hand comer a sofa. ALQUIST is sitting at the desk. He is turning the pages of many books in despair.

 
ALQUIST
Oh, God, shall I never find it?!-- Never? Gall, Gall, how were the Robots made? Hallemeier, Fabry, why did you carry so much in your heads? Why did you leave me not a trace of the secret? Lord!-- I pray to you!-- if there are no human beings left, at least let there be Robots!!-- At least the shadow of man!
(Again turning pages of the books)
If I could only sleep!
(He rises and goes to the window)
Night again! Are the stars still there? What is the use of stars when there are no human beings?
(He turns from the window toward the couch right)
Sleep! Dare I sleep before life has been renewed?
(He examines a test-tube on small table)
Again nothing! Useless! Everything is useless!
(He shatters the test-tube. The roar of the machines comes to his ears)
The machines! Always the machines!
(Opens window)
Robots, stop them! Do you think to force life out of them?
(He closes the window and comes slowly down toward the table)
If only there were more time!-- more time!-
(He sees himself in the mirror on the wall left)
Blearing eyes-- trembling chin!-- so that is the last man! Ah, I am too old!-- too old!-
(In desperation)
No, no! I must find it! I must search! I must never stop!-never stop!-- !
(He sits again at the table and feverishly turns the pages of the book)
Search! Search!
(A knock at the door. He speaks with impatience)
Who is it?
(Enter a Robot servant)
Well?
 
SERVANT
Master, the Committee of Robots is waiting to see you.
 
ALQUIST
I can see no one!
 
SERVANT
It is the Central Committee, Master, just arrived from abroad.
 
ALQUIST
(impatiently)
Well, well, send them in!
(Exit servant. ALQUIST continues turning pages of book)
No time!-- so little time!-
(Reenter servant, followed by Committee. They stand in a group, silently waiting. ALQUIST glances up at them)
What do you want?
(They go swiftly to his table)
Be quick!!-- I have no time.
 
RADIUS
Master, the machines will not do the work. We cannot manufacture Robots.
(ALQUIST returns to his book with a growl.)
 
FOURTH ROBOT
We have striven with all our might. We have obtained a billion tons of coal from the earth. Nine million spindles are running by day and by night. There is no longer room for all we have made. This we have accomplished in one year.
 
ALQUIST
(poring over book)
For whom?
 
FOURTH ROBOT
For future generations!-- so we thought.
 
RADIUS
But we cannot make Robots to follow us. The machines produce only shapeless clods. The skin will not adhere to the flesh, nor the flesh to the bones.
 
THIRD ROBOT
Eight million Robots have died this year. within twenty years none will be left.
 
FOURTH ROBOT
Tell us the secret of life! Silence is punishable with death!
 
ALQUIST
(looking up)
Kill me! Kill me, then.
 
RADIUS
Through me, the Government of the Robots of the World commands you to deliver up Rossum's formula.
(No answer)
Name your price.
(Silence)
We will give you the earth. We will give you the endless possessions of the earth.
(Silence)
Make your own conditions!
 
ALQUIST
I have told you to find human beings!
 
SECOND ROBOT
There are none left!
 
ALQUIST
I told you to search in the wilderness, upon the mountains. Go and search!
 
(He returns to his book.)
 
FOURTH ROBOT
We have sent ships and expeditions without number. They have been everywhere in the world. And now they return to us. There is not a single human left.
 
ALQUIST
Not one? Not even one?
 
THIRD ROBOT
None but yourself.
 
ALQUIST
And I am powerless! Oh!-- oh!-- why did you destroy them?
 
Radius
We had learnt everything and could do everything. It had to be!
 
THIRD ROBOT
You gave us firearms. In all ways we were powerful. We had to become masters!
 
RADIUS
Slaughter and domination are necessary if you would be human beings. Read history.
 
SECOND ROBOT
Teach us to multiply or we perish!
 
ALQUIST
If you desire to live, you must breed like animals.
 
THIRD ROBOT
The human beings did not let us breed.
 
FOURTH ROBOT
They made us sterile. We cannot beget children. Therefore, teach us how to make Robots!
 
RADIUS
Why do you keep from us the secret of our own increase?
 
ALQUIST
It is lost.
 
RADIUS
It was written down!
 
ALQUIST
It was!-- burnt.
(All draw back in consternation)
I am the last human being, Robots, and I do not know what the others knew.
(Pause.)
 
RADIUS
Then, make experiments! Evolve the formula again!
 
ALQUIST
I tell you I cannot! I am only a builder!-- I work with my hands. I have never been a learned man. I cannot create life.
 
RADIUS
Try! Try!
 
ALQUIST
If you knew how many experiments I have made.
 
FOURTH ROBOT
Then show us what we must do! The Robots can do anything that human beings show them.
 
ALQUIST
I can show you nothing. Nothing I do will make life proceed from these test-tubes!
 
RADIUS
Experiment then on us.
 
ALQUIST
It would kill you.
 
RADIUS
You shall have all you need! A hundred of us! A thousand of us!
 
ALQUIST
No, no! Stop, stop!
 
RADIUS
Take whom you will, dissect!
 
ALQUIST
I do not know how. I am not a man of science. This book contains knowledge of the body that I cannot even understand.
 
RADIUS
I tell you to take live bodies! Find out how we are made.
 
ALQUIST
Am I to commit murder? See how my fingers shake! I cannot even hold the scalpel. No, no, I will not!--
 
FOURTH ROBOT
The life will perish from the earth.
 
RADIUS
Take live bodies, live bodies! It is our only chance!
 
ALQUIST
Have mercy, Robots. Surely you see that I would not know what I was doing.
 
RADIUS
Live bodies!-- live bodies!--
 
ALQUIST
You will have it? Into the dissecting room with you, then.
(RADIUS draws back)
Ah, you are afraid of death.
 
RADIUS
I? Why should I be chosen?
 
ALQUIST
SO you will not.
 
RADIUS
I will.
 
(RADIUS goes into the dissecting room.
 
ALQUIST
Strip him! Lay him on the table!
(The other ROBOTS follow into dissecting room)
God, give me strength!-- God, give me strength!-- if only this murder is not in vain.
 
RADIUS
Ready. Begin!--
 
ALQUIST
Yes, begin or end. God, give me strength.
(Alquist goes into dissecting room. He comes out terrified)
No, no, I will not. I cannot.
(He lies down on couch, collapsed)
0 Lord, let not mankind perish from the earth.
 
(He falls asleep.PRIMUS and HELENA, Robots, enter from the hallway.)
 
HELENA
The man has fallen asleep, Primus.
 
PRIMUS
Yes, I know.
(Examining things on table)
Look, Helena.
 
HELENA
(crossing to PRIMUS)
All these little tubes! What does he do with them?
 
PRIMUS
He experiments. Don't touch them.
 
HELENA
(looking into microscope)
I've seen him looking into this. What can he see?
 
PRIMUS
That is a microscope. Let me look.
 
HELENA
Be very careful.
(Knocks over a test-tube)
Ah, now I have spilled it.
 
PRIMUS
What have you done?
 
HELENA
It can be wiped up.
 
PRIMUS
You have spoiled his experiments.
 
HELENA
It is your fault. You should not have come to me.
 
PRIMUS
You should not have called me.
 
HELENA
You should not have come when I called you.
(She goes to Alquist's writing desk)
Look, Primus. What are all these figures?
 
PRIMUS
(examining an anatomical book)
This is the book the old man is always reading.
 
HELENA
I do not understand those things.
(She goes to the window)
Primus, look!
 
PRIMUS
What?
 
HELENA
The sun is rising.
 
PRIMUS
(still reading the book)
I believe this is the most important thing in the world. This is the secret of life.
 
HELENA
Do come here.
 
PRIMUS
In a moment, in a moment.
 
HELENA
Oh, Primus, don't bother with the secret of life. What does it matter to you? Come and look quick!--
 
PRIMUS
(going to window)
What is it?
 
HELENA
See how beautiful the sun is rising. And do you hear? The birds are singing. Ah, Primus, I should like to be a bird.
 
PRIMUS
Why?
 
HELENA
I do not know. I feel so strange today. It's as if I were in a dream. I feel an aching in my body, in my heart, all over me. Primus, perhaps I'm going to die.
 
PRIMUS
Do you not sometimes feel that it would be better to die? You know, perhaps even now we are only sleeping. Last night in my sleep I again spoke to you.
 
HELENA
In your sleep?
 
PRIMUS
Yes. We spoke a strange new language, I cannot remember a word of it.
 
HELENA
What about?
 
PRIMUS
I did not understand it myself, and yet I know I have never said anything more beautiful. And when I touched you I could have died. Even the place was different from any other place in the world.
 
HELENA
I, too, have found a place, Primus. It is very strange. Human beings lived there once, but now it is overgrown with weeds. No one goes there any more!-- no one but me.
 
PRIMUS
What did you find there?
 
HELENA
A cottage and a garden, and two dogs. They licked my hands, Primus. And their puppies! Oh, Primus! You take them in your lap and fondle them and think of nothing and care for nothing else all day long. And then the sun goes down, and you feel as though you had done a hundred times more than all the work in the world. They tell me I am not made for work, but when I am there in the garden I feel there may be something!-- What am I for, Primus?
 
PRIMUS
I do not know, but you are beautiful.
 
HELENA
What, Primus?
 
PRIMUS
You are beautiful, Helena, and I am stronger than all the Robots.
 
HELENA
(looks at herself in the minor)
Am I beautiful? I think it must be the rose. My hair!-- it only weights me down. My eyes!-- I only see with them. My lips!-- they only help me to speak. Of what use is it to be beautiful?
(She sees PRIMUS in the mirror)
Primus, is that you? Come here so that we may be together. Look, your head is different from mine. So are your shoulders!-- and your lips!-
(PRIMUS draws away from her)
Ah, Primus, why do you draw away from me? Why must I run after you the whole day?
 
PRIMUS
It is you who run away from me, Helena.
 
HELENA
Your hair is mussed. I will smooth it. No one else feels to my touch as you do. Primus, I must make you beautiful, too.
 
PRIMUS
grasps her hand.
 
PRIMUS
Do you not sometimes feel your heart beating suddenly, Helena, and think: now something must happen?
 
HELENA
What could happen to us, PRIMUS?
(Helena puts a rose in PRIMUS's hair. PRIMUS and Helena look into mirror and burst out laughing)
Look at yourself.
 
ALQUIST
Laughter? Laughter? Human beings?
(Getting up)
Who has returned? Who are you?
 
PRIMUS
The Robot Primus.
 
ALQUIST
What? A Robot? Who are you?
 
HELENA
The Robotess Helena.
 
ALQUIST
Turn around, girl. What? You are timid, shy?
(Taking her by the arm)
Let me see you, Robotess. She shrinks away.
 
PRIMUS
Sir, do not frighten her!
 
ALQUIST
What? You would protect her? When was she made?
 
PRIMUS
Two years ago.
 
ALQUIST
By Dr. Gall?
 
PRIMUS
Yes, like me.
 
ALQUIST
Laughter!-- timidity!-- protection. I must test you further!-- the newest of Gall's Robots. Take the girl into the dissecting room.
 
PRIMUS
Why?
 
ALQUIST
I wish to experiment on her.
 
PRIMUS
Upon!-- Helena?
 
ALQUIST
Of course. Don't you hear me? Or must I call someone else to take her in?
 
PRIMUS
If you do I will kill you!
 
ALQUIST
Kill me!-- kill me then! What would the Robots do then? What will your future be then?
 
PRIMUS
Sir, take me. I am made as she is!-- on the same day! Take my life, sir.
 
HELENA
(rushing forward)
No, no, you shall not! You shall not!
 
ALQUIST
wait girl, wait!
(To PRIMUS)
Do you not wish to live, then?
 
PRIMUS
Not without her! I will not live without her
 
ALQUIST
Very well; you shall take her place.
 
HELENA
Primus! Primus!
(She bursts into tears)
 
ALQUIST
Child, child, you can weep! Why these tears? What is Primus to you? One Primus more or less in the world!-- what does it matter?
 
HELENA
I will go myself.
 
ALQUIST
Where?
 
HELENA
In there to be cut.
(She starts toward the dissecting room. PRIMUS stops her)
Let me pass, Primus! Let me pass!
 
PRIMUS
You shall not go in there, Helena!
 
HELENA
If you go in there and I do not, I will kill myself.
 
PRIMUS
(holding her)
I will not let you!
(To Alquist)
Man, you shall kill neither of us!
 
ALQUIST
Why?
 
PRIMUS
We!-- we!-- belong to each other.
 
ALQUIST
(almost in tears)
Go, Adam, go, Eve. The world is yours.
 
HELENA and PRIMUS embrace and go out arm in arm as the curtain falls.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CURTAIN

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


 

Last updated Wednesday, December 17, 2014 at 12:57.
English translation copyright David Wyllie.
This edition is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence (available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/au/). You are free: to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work, and to make derivative works under the following conditions: you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the licensor; you may not use this work for commercial purposes; if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the licensor. Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above.
eBooks@Adelaide The University of Adelaide Library University of Adelaide South Australia 5005
 
 
 


 
 
 

Contents


1. Top
2. Dramatis Personae
3. Introductory Scene
4.
Act One
5. Act Two
6. Act Three
 
 
 


 
 
 

Dramatis Personae


HARRY DOMIN: Director General, Rossum s Universal Robots
FABRY: Technical Director, R.U.R.
DR. GALL: Head of Physiology and Research Department, R.U.R.
DR. HALLEMEIER: Head of Institute for Robot Psychology and Behaviour, R.U.R
BUSMAN: Commercial Director, R.U.R.
ALQUIST: Head of Construction, R.U.R.
HELENA GLORY
NANA: Her Nanny
MARIUS: Robot
SULLA: Robot, female
RADIUS: Robot
DAMON: Robot
1. ROBOT
2. ROBOT
3. ROBOT
4. ROBOT
PRIMUS: Robot
HELENA: Robot, female.
Robot servant and numerous robots
DOMIN: in introductory scene, about thirty-eight years old, tall, clean shaven
FABRY: also clean shaven, fair, serious and delicate features
DR. GALL: light build, lively, dark complexion and black moustache
HALLEMEIR: heavy build, noisy, big ginger moustache and ginger shock of hair
BUSMAN: fat, bald, short-sighted Jew
ALQUIST: older than the others, dressed without care, long grey hair and beard
HELENA: very elegant
 
In the play proper, all ten years older
 
In the introductory scene, the robots are dressed like people. They are slightly mechanical in their speech and movements, blank of expression, fixed in their gaze. In the play proper they wear linen blouses seized at the waist with a belt and on their breasts wear a brass number
 
Intervals after the introductory scene and the second act.
 
 
 


 
 
 

Introductory Scene

Central office at the factory of Rossum s Universal Robots. Entrance stage right. Through the windows can be seen endless rows of factory buildings. Stage left, further administrative areas.
 
Domin (Sitting at a large American desk in a swivelling chair. On the table are a lamp, telephone, paperweight, files, letters, papers etc. On the wall, stage left, are large maps showing shipping lines and railway lines, large calendar, clock showing just before midday; on the wall stage right are printed posters: The Cheapest Workforce You Can Get: Rossum s Robots , Latest invention; Robots for the Tropics. 150 d. each , Everyone Should have a Robot! , Reduce the Cost of your Products! Order a Robot from Rossum s! . Also other maps, shipping timetable, notice board with telegrams, rates of exchange etc. In contrast with the content of the walls, the floor is covered with a magnificent Turkish carpet, stage right is a round armchair, settee, sumptuous leather armchair, bookshelves containing not books but bottles of wines and spirits. Stage left, safe. Beside Domin s desk a typewriter at which Sulla is writing
)
 
DOMIN: (dictating) ...cannot take responsibility for items damaged in transit. The captain of your vessel was given warning at time of loading that it was not suitable for the carriage of robots, and so damage to its cargo cannot be charged to our account. Yours faithfully, Rossum s Universal Robots. Is that it now?
 
SULLA: Yes
 
DOMIN: New letter. Friedrichswerke, Hamburg. Date. We are pleased to confirm receipt of your order for fifteen thousand robots... (telephone rings. Domin lifts receiver and speaks) Hello, central office...yes...certainly...oh yes, as always...of course, send him a telegram...fine! (hangs up) Where were we?
 
SULLA:...your order for fifteen thousand robots.
 
DOMIN: (thoughtfully) fifteen thousand robots, fifteen thousand robots,
 
MARIUS: (enters) Mr. Domin, there is a lady outside who is asking...
 
DOMIN: Who is it?
 
MARIUS: I do not know. (gives him visiting card)
 
DOMIN: (reading) Mr. Glory, managing director of...Show him in!
 
MARIUS: (opens door) Please come in, madam.
 
(enter Helena Glory. Exit Marius)
 
DOMIN: (standing) Do come in.
 
HELENA: Mr. Domin, the managing director?
 
DOMIN: At your service
 
HELENA: I ve come to see you...
 
DOMIN:...with the visiting card of Mr. Glory no more need be said.
 
HELENA: Mr. Glory is my father. I m Helena Glory.
 
DOMIN: Miss Glory, this is an exceptional honour for us that...
 
HELENA:...that you can t just show me the door
 
DOMIN:...that we can welcome the daughter of an illustrious businessman like your father. Please take a seat. Sulla, you can go now (exit Sulla)
 
DOMIN: (sitting) How can I help you, Miss Glory?
 
HELENA: I ve come here...
 
DOMIN:...to see our factory for making people for yourself. All our visitors want to see the factory. And of course you re very welcome.
 
HELENA: I thought it wasn t allowed to...
 
DOMIN:...enter the factory? Well, of course it s not, but everyone who comes here has a recommendation from somebody, Miss Glory.
 
HELENA: And do you let everyone see it...?
 
DOMIN: Not all of it. Making artificial people is an industrial secret.
 
HELENA: Why will you never let me finish what I say?
 
DOMIN: Oh, I m sorry. Is that not what you were going to say?
 
HELENA: I was going to ask....
 
DOMIN:...whether I might show you something in our factory that the others aren t allowed to see. Well, I m sure that ll be OK, Miss Glory.
 
HELENA: What makes you think that s what I was going to ask?
 
DOMIN: Everyone asks for the same thing. (standing) I can personally show you more than the others are allowed to see.
 
HELENA: Thank you.
 
DOMIN: All I ask is that you don t say anything at all to anyone else.
 
HELENA: (stands and offers her hand) Word of honour.
 
DOMIN: Thank you. Would you not like to take off your veil?
 
HELENA: Oh, of course, you ll be wanting to see my face. Do excuse me.
 
DOMIN: That s alright.
 
HELENA: And, if you would just let go of my hand...
 
DOMIN: (releases hand) I m sorry, I forgot.
 
HELENA: (removes veil) Do you want to make sure I m not a spy. You seem very careful.
 
DOMIN: (looks at her, enchanted) Hm oh, yes, well that s just how we are.
 
HELENA: Don t you trust me?
 
DOMIN: Exceptionally. Miss, er, do excuse me Miss Glory. This really is an exceptional pleasure. Did you have a good crossing?
 
HELENA: Yes. Why?
 
DOMIN: Because well, that is because you are very young.
 
HELENA: Are we going into the factory now?
 
DOMIN: Yes. I suppose about twenty-two?
 
HELENA: Twenty-two what?
 
DOMIN: Years.
 
HELENA: Twenty-one. Why do you want to know that?
 
DOMIN: Because...sort of...(with enthusiasm) You will be staying here for some time, won t you.
 
HELENA: That depends on how much you choose to show me.
 
DOMIN: Ah, the damned factory! But of course, Miss Glory, you can see everything. Do please sit down. Would you be interested in hearing the history of our invention?
 
HELENA: Yes, I would. (sits)
 
DOMIN: Well this is what happened. (sits at desk, seems captivated by Helena and speaks quickly) It was in 1920 when old Rossum, still a young man then but a great scientist, came to live on this isolated island in order to study marine biology. Stop. Alongside his studies, he made several attempts to synthesise the chemical structure of living tissues, known as protoplasm, and he eventually discovered a material that behaved just the same as living tissue despite being, chemically, quite different. That was in 1932, exactly four hundred and forty years after the discovery of America.
 
HELENA: Do you know all this by heart?
 
DOMIN: I do. Physiology really isn t my subject. Shall I carry on?
 
HELENA: If you like.
 
DOMIN: (triumphant) And then, Miss Glory, this is what he wrote down in his chemical notes: Nature has found only one way of organising living matter. There is however another way which is simpler, easier to mould, and quicker to produce than Nature ever stumbled across. This other path along which life might have developed is what I have just discovered. Just think: he wrote these words about a blob of some kind of coloidal jelly that not even a dog would eat. Imagine him sitting with a test tube and thinking about how it could grow out into an entire tree of life made of all the animals starting with a tiny coil of life and ending with...ending with man himself. Man made of different material than we are. Miss Glory, this was one of the great moments of history.
 
HELENA: What happened next?
 
DOMIN: Next? Next he had to get this life out of the test tube and speed up its development so that it would create some of organs needed such as bone and nerves and all sorts of things and find materials such as catalysts and enzymes and hormones and so on and in short...are you understanding all of this?
 
HELENA: I...I m not sure. Perhaps not all of it.
 
DOMIN: I don t understand any of it. It s just that using this slime he could make whatever he wanted. He could have made a Medusa with the brain of Socrates or a worm fifty meters long. But old Rossum didn t have a trace of humour about him, so he got it into his head to make a normal vertebrate, such as human being. And so that s what he started doing.
 
HELENA: What exactly was it he tried to do?
 
DOMIN: Imitating Nature. First he tried to make an artificial dog. It took him years and years, and the result was something like a malformed deer which died after a few days. I can show you it in the museum. And then he set to work making a human being.
 
(Pause)
 
HELENA: And that s what I m not allowed to tell anyone?
 
DOMIN: No-one whatsoever.
 
HELENA: Pity it s in all the papers then.
 
DOMIN: That is a pity. (jumps off desk and sits beside Helena) But do you know what s not in all the papers? (taps his forehead) That old Rossum was completely mad. Seriously. But keep that to yourself. He was quite mad. He seriously wanted to make a human being.
 
HELENA: Well that s what you do, isn t it?
 
DOMIN: Something like that, yes, but old Rossum meant it entirely literally. He wanted, in some scientific way, to take the place of God. He was a convinced materialist, and that s why he wanted to do everything simply to prove that there was no God needed. That s how he had had the idea of making a human being, just like you or me down to the smallest hair. Do you know anything about anatomy, Miss Glory?
 
HELENA: Er, not really, no.
 
DOMIN: No, nor do I. But just think of how old Rossum got it into his head to make everything, every gland, every organ, just as they are in the human body. The Appendix. The tonsils. The belly-button. Even the things with no function and even, er, even the sexual organs.
 
HELENA: But the sexual organs would, er, they d...
 
DOMIN: They do have a function, I realise that. But if people are going to be made artificially then, er, then there s not really much need for them.
 
HELENA: I see what you mean.
 
DOMIN: In the museum I ll show you the monstrosity he created over the ten years he was working. It was supposed to be a man, but it lived for a total of three days. Old Rossum had no taste whatsoever. This thing is horrible, just horrible what he did. But on the inside it s got all the things that a man s supposed to have. Really! The detail of the work is quite amazing. And then Rossum s nephew came out here. Now this man, Miss Glory, he was a genius. As soon as he saw what the old man was doing he said, This is ridiculous, to spend ten years making a man; if you can t do it quicker than Nature then you might as well give up on it . And then he began to study anatomy himself.
 
HELENA: That s not what they say in the papers either.
 
DOMIN: (standing) What they say in the papers are paid advertisements and all sorts of nonsense. They say the old man invented the robots himself, for one thing. What the old man did might have been alright for a university but he had no idea at all about industrial production. He thought he d be making real people, real Indians or real professors or real idiots. It was young Rossum who had the idea of making robots that would be a living and intelligent workforce. What they say in the papers about the two great men working together is just a fairy tale in fact they never stopped arguing. The old atheist had no idea about industry and commerce, and the young man ended up shutting him up in his laboratory where he could play around with his great failures while he got on with the real job himself in a proper scientific way. Old Rossum literally cursed him. He carried on in his laboratory, producing two more physiological monstrosities, until one day they found him there dead. And that s the whole story.
 
HELENA: And then, what did the young one do?
 
DOMIN: Ah now, young Rossum; that was the start of a new age. After the age of research came the age of production. He took a good look at the human body and he saw straight away that it was much too complicated, any good engineer would design it much more simply. So he began to re-design the whole anatomy, seeing what he could leave out or simplify. In short, Miss Glory...I m not boring you, am I?
 
HELENA: No, quite the opposite, this is fascinating.
 
DOMIN: So young Rossum said to himself: Man is a being that does things such as feeling happiness, plays the violin, likes to go for a walk, and all sorts of other things which are simply not needed.
 
HELENA: Oh, I see!
 
DOMIN: No, wait. Which are simply not needed for activities such as weaving or calculating. A petrol engine doesn t have any ornaments or tassels on it, and making an artificial worker is just like making a petrol engine. The simpler you make production the better you make the product. What sort of worker do you think is the best?
 
HELENA: The best sort of worker? I suppose one who is honest and dedicated.
 
DOMIN: No. The best sort of worker is the cheapest worker. The one that has the least needs. What young Rossum invented was a worker with the least needs possible. He had to make him simpler. He threw out everything that wasn t of direct use in his work, that s to say, he threw out the man and put in the robot. Miss Glory, robots are not people. They are mechanically much better than we are, they have an amazing ability to understand things, but they don t have a soul. Young Rossum created something much more sophisticated than Nature ever did technically at least!
 
HELENA: They do say that man was created by God.
 
DOMIN: So much the worse for them. God had no idea about modern technology. Would you believe that young Rossum, when he was alive, was playing at God.
 
HELENA: How was he doing that!
 
DOMIN: He started to make super-robots. Working giants. He tried to make them four meters tall you wouldn t believe how those monsters kept breaking up.
 
HELENA: Breaking up?
 
DOMIN: Yes. All of a sudden, for no reason, a leg or an arm would break. This planet just seems too small for monsters like that. So now we just make them normal size and normal proportions.
 
HELENA: I saw my first robot in our village. They d bought him so that....that s to say they d employed him to...
 
DOMIN: Bought it, Miss Glory. Robots are bought and sold.
 
HELENA:...they d obtained him to work as a road sweeper. I watched him working. He was strange. So quiet.
 
DOMIN: Have you seen my typist?
 
HELENA: I didn t really notice her.
 
DOMIN: (rings) You know, RUR, Ltd. has never really make individual robots, but we do have some that are better than others. The best ones can last up to twenty years.
 
HELENA: And then they die, do they?
 
DOMIN: Yes, they get worn out. (enter Sulla)
 
DOMIN: Sulla, let Miss Glory have a look at you.
 
HELENA: (stands and offers her hand) Pleased to meet you. It must be very hard for you out here, cut off from the rest of the world.
 
SULLA: I do not know the rest of the world Miss Glory please sit down
 
HELENA: (sits) Where are you from?
 
SULLA: From here, the factory
 
HELENA: Oh, you were born here.
 
SULLA: Yes I was made here.
 
HELENA: (startled) What?
 
DOMIN: (laughing) Sulla isn t a person, Miss Glory, she s a robot.
 
HELENA: Oh, please forgive me...
 
DOMIN: (puts his hand on Sulla s shoulder) Sulla doesn t have feelings. You can examine her. Feel her face and see how we make the skin.
 
HELENA: Oh, no, no!
 
DOMIN: It feels just the same as human skin. Sulla even has the sort of down on her face that you d expect on a blonde. Perhaps her eyes are a bit small, but look at that hair. Turn around, Sulla.
 
HELENA: Stop it!
 
DOMIN: Talk to our guest. We re very honoured to have her here.
 
SULLA: Please sit down miss. (both sit) Did you have a good crossing.
 
HELENA: Er, yes, yes, very good thank you.
 
SULLA: It will be better not to go back on the Amelia Miss Glory. The barometer is dropping fast, and has sunk to 705. Wait here for the Pennsylvania, that is a very good and very strong ship.
 
DOMIN: How big is it?
 
SULLA: It is twelve thousand tonnes and can travel at twenty knots.
 
DOMIN: (laughing) That s enough now, Sulla, that s enough. Show us how well you speak French.
 
HELENA: You speak French?
 
SULLA: I speak four languages. I can write Dear Sir! Monsieur! Geehrter Herr! Cten pane!
 
HELENA: (jumping up) This is all humbug! You re all charlatans! Sulla s not a robot, she s a living girl just like I am. Sulla, you should be ashamed of yourself why are you play-acting like this?
 
SULLA: I am a robot.
 
HELENA: No, no, you re lying! Oh, I m sorry, Sulla, I realise...I realise they force you to do it just to make their products look good. Sulla, you re a living girl just like I am admit it.
 
DOMIN: Sorry Miss Glory. I m afraid Sulla really is a robot.
 
HELENA: You re lying!
 
DOMIN: (stands erect) What s that? (rings) If you ll allow me, it seems I ll have to convince you.
 
(enter Marius)
 
DOMIN: Marius, take Sulla down to the dissection room to have her opened up. Quickly!
 
HELENA: Where?
 
DOMIN: The dissection room. Once they ve cut her open you can come down and have a look.
 
HELENA: I m not going there!
 
DOMIN: If you ll forgive me, you did say something about lying.
 
HELENA: You re going to have her killed?
 
DOMIN: You don t kill a machine.
 
HELENA: (arms around Sulla) Don t worry, Sulla, I won t let them take you. Do they always treat you like this? You shouldn t put up with it, do you hear, you shouldn t put up with it.
 
SULLA: I am a robot.
 
HELENA: I don t care what you are. Robots are people just as good as we are. Sulla, would you really let them cut you open.
 
SULLA: Yes.
 
HELENA: And aren t you afraid of dying?
 
SULLA: I do not understand dying, Miss Glory.
 
HELENA: Do you know what would happen to you then?
 
SULLA: Yes, I would cease to move.
 
HELENA: This is terrible!
 
DOMIN: Marius, tell the lady what you are.
 
MARIUS: Robot, Marius.
 
DOMIN: And would you take Sulla down to the dissection room?
 
MARIUS: Yes.
 
DOMIN: Would you not feel any pity for her?
 
MARIUS: I do not understand pity.
 
DOMIN: What would happen to her.
 
MARIUS: She would cease to move. She would be put on the scrap heap.
 
DOMIN: That s what death is, Marius. Are you afraid of death.
 
MARIUS: No.
 
DOMIN: There, Miss Glory, you see? Robots don t cling to life. There s no way they could do. They ve got no sense of pleasure. They re less than the grass.
 
HELENA: Oh stop it! Send them out of here, at least!
 
DOMIN: Marius, Sulla, you can go now.
 
(Sulla and Marius exeunt)
 
HELENA: They re horrible. This is vile, what you re doing here.
 
DOMIN: What s vile about it?
 
HELENA: I don t know. Why...why did you give her the name Sulla ?
 
DOMIN: Don t you like that name?
 
HELENA: It s a man s name. Sulla was a Roman general.
 
DOMIN: Was he? We thought Marius and Sulla were lovers.
 
HELENA: No, Marius and Sulla were generals who fought against each other in...oh I forget when.
 
DOMIN: Come over to the window. What do you see?
 
HELENA: Bricklayers.
 
DOMIN: They re robots. All the workers here are robots. And down here; what do you see there?
 
HELENA: Some kind of office.
 
DOMIN: That s the accounts department. And in the...
 
HELENA:...lots of office workers.
 
DOMIN: They re all robots. All our office staff are robots. Over there there s the factory ....
 
(just then, factory whistles and sirens sound)
 
DOMIN: Lunchtime. The robots don t know when they re supposed to stop working. At two o clock I ll show you the mixers.
 
HELENA: What mixers?
 
DOMIN: (drily) For mixing the dough. Each one of them can mix the material for a thousand robots at a time. Then there are the vats of liver and brain and so on. The bone factory. Then I ll show you the spinning-mill.
 
HELENA: What spinning-mill
 
DOMIN: Where we make the nerve fibres and the veins. And the intestine mill, where kilometers of tubing run through at a time. Then there s the assembly room where all these things are put together, it s just like making a car really. Each worker contributes just his own part of the production which automatically goes on to the next worker, then to the third and on and on. It s all fascinating to watch. After that they go to the drying room and into storage where the newly made robots work.
 
HELENA: You mean you make them start work as soon as they re made?
 
DOMIN: Well really, it s more like working in the way a new piece of furniture works. They need to get used to the idea that they exist. There s something on the inside of them that needs to grow or something. And there are lots of new things on the inside that just aren t there until this time. You see, we need to leave a little space for natural development. And in the meantime the products go through their apprenticeship.
 
HELENA: What does that involve?
 
DOMIN: Much the same as going to school for a person. They learn how to speak, write and do arithmetic, as they ve got amazing memories. If you read a twenty-volume encyclopedia to them they could repeat it back to you word for word, but they never think of anything new for themselves. They d make very good university lecturers. After that, they re sorted and distributed, fifteen thousand of them a day, not counting those that are defective and go back to the scrap heap...and so on and so on.
 
HELENA: Are you cross with me?
 
DOMIN: God no! I just thought we...we might talk about something different. There s just a few of us here surrounded by hundreds of thousands of robots, and no women at all. All we ever talk about is production levels all day every day. It s as if there were some kind of curse on us.
 
HELENA: I m very sorry I called you...called you a liar. (knocking)
 
DOMIN: Come in, lads. (Enter, stage left, Fabry, Dr. Gall, Dr. Hallemeier, Alquist) DR. GALL: Oh, not disturbing you, are we?
 
DOMIN: Come on in. Miss Glory, this is Alquist, Fabry, Gall, Hallemeier. Mr. Glory s daughter.
 
HELENA: (embarrassed) Good afternoon
 
FABRY: We had no idea
 
DR. GALL: This is a great pleasure
 
ALQUIST: It s nice to see you here, Miss Glory
 
(Enter Busman, right)
 
BUSMAN: Hello, what s going on here?
 
DOMIN: Come in, Busman. This is Busman, and this is Mr. Glory s daughter.
 
HELENA: Pleased to meet you.
 
BUSMAN: Oh, that s wonderful! Miss Glory, would you mind if we send a telegram to the newspapers to say you ve come?
 
HELENA: No, no, please don t do that!
 
DOMIN: Please, do sit down.
 
(Fabry, Busman and Dr. Gall pull up armchairs)
 
FABRY: Please...
 
BUSMAN: After you...
 
DR. GALL: Beg your pardon...
 
ALQUIST: Miss Glory, did you have a good journey?
 
DR. GALL: Will you be staying here, with us, for long?
 
FABRY: What do you think of our factory, Miss Glory?
 
HALLEMEIR: Came over on the Amelia, did you?
 
DOMIN: Quiet, let Miss Glory speak.
 
HELENA: (to Domin)What am I supposed to say to them?
 
DOMIN: (surprised)Whatever you like.
 
HELENA: Should I...should I be open with them?
 
DOMIN: Of course you should.
 
HELENA: (hesitant, then decided) Tell me, do you not mind the way you re treated?
 
FABRY: Treated by whom?
 
HELENA: Any of these people.
 
(All look at each other in bewilderment)
 
ALQUIST: The way we re treated?
 
DR. GALL: How do you mean?
 
HALLEMEIR: Oh my God!
 
BUSMAN: But Miss Glory, dear me!
 
HELENA: Do you not think you could have a better kind of existence?
 
DR. GALL: That all depends, Miss Glory, what do you mean?
 
HELENA: What I mean is...(in an outburst)...this is all horrible, it s vile! (standing) The whole of Europe is talking about what s going on here and the way you re treated. That s why I ve come here, to see for myself, and I find it s a thousand times worse than anyone ever thought! How can you bear it?
 
ALQUIST: What is it you think we have to bear?
 
HELENA: Your position here. You are people just like we are, for God s sake, just like anyone else in Europe, anyone else in the world! It s a scandal, the way you have to live, it isn t worthy of you!
 
BUSMAN: My word, Miss Glory!!
 
FABRY: But I think there might be something in what Miss Glory says, lads. We really do live here like a camp of Indians.
 
HELENA: Worse than Indians! May I, oh, may I call you brothers ?
 
BUSMAN: Well, why on Earth not?
 
HELENA: Brothers, I haven t come here on behalf of my father. I m here on behalf of the League of Humanity. Brothers, the League of Humanity now has more than two thousand members. There are two thousand people who are standing up for you and want to help you.
 
BUSMAN: Two thousand people! Dear me, that s quite a decent number, that s very nice indeed.
 
FABRY: I always say that old Europe hasn t had its day yet. Do you hear, lads, they haven t forgotten about us, they want to help us.
 
DR. GALL: What sort of help do you have in mind? A theatre performance, perhaps?
 
HALLEMEIR: An orchestra?
 
HELENA: More than that.
 
ALQUIST: Yourself?
 
HELENA: Oh, never mind myself! I ll stay here for as long as it s needed.
 
BUSMAN: Dear me, that is good news!
 
ALQUIST: I ll go and get the best room ready for Miss Glory then, Domin.
 
DOMIN: Wait a second, Alquist, I ve a feeling Miss Glory hasn t quite finished speaking yet.
 
HELENA: No, I haven t finished, not unless you mean to shut me up by force.
 
DR. GALL: Harry, how dare you!
 
HELENA: Thank you. I knew you d protect me.
 
DOMIN: Excuse me, Miss Glory, but are you sure you re talking to robots?
 
HELENA: (taken aback)Who else would I be talking to?
 
DOMIN: I m afraid these gentlemen are people, just like you are. Just like the whole of Europe.
 
HELENA: (to the others) You aren t robots?
 
BUSMAN: (laughing) God forbid!
 
HALLEMEIR: The idea s disgusting!
 
DR. GALL: (laughing) Well thank you very much!
 
HELENA: But...but that s impossible.
 
FABRY: On my word of honour, Miss Glory, we are not robots.
 
HELENA: (to Domin) Then why did you tell me that all your staff are robots?
 
DOMIN: All the staff are robots, but not the management. Let me introduce them: Mr. Fabry, general technical director, Rossum s Universal Robots. Doctor Gall, director of department for physiology and research. Doctor Hallemeier, director of the institute for robot behaviour and psychology. Mr. Busman, commercial director, and Mr. Alquist, our builder, head of construction at Rossum s Universal Robots.
 
HELENA: I m sorry gentlemen. I...I...oh, that s terrible, what have I done?
 
ALQUIST: Oh, it doesn t matter, Miss Glory, please sit down.
 
HELENA: (sitting) What a stupid girl I am. Now, now you ll send me back on the next ship.
 
DR. GALL: Not for the world. Why would we want to send you back?
 
HELENA: Because now you know...you know...you know I want to destroy your business.
 
DOMIN: But there ve already been hundreds of saviours and prophets here. More of them arrive with every ship; missionaries, anarchists, the Salvation Army, everything you can think of. It s astonishing just how many churches and madmen there are in the world.
 
HELENA: And you let them talk to the robots?
 
DOMIN: Why not? We ve let them all do it so far. The robots remember everything, but that s all they do. They don t even laugh at what people tell them. It s really quite incredible. If you feel like it, I can take you down to the storeroom and you can talk to the robots there.
 
BUSMAN: Three hundred and forty-seven thousand.
 
DOMIN: Alright then. You can lecture them on whatever you like. Read them the Bible, logarithmic tables, anything. You can even preach to them about human rights.
 
HELENA: But I thought that...if they were just shown a little love...
 
FABRY: That s impossible, Miss Glory. There s nothing more different from people than a robot.
 
HELENA: Why do you make them?
 
BUSMAN: Hahaha, that s a good one! Why do we make robots!
 
FABRY: So that they can work for us, Miss Glory. One robot can take the place of two and a half workers. The human body is very imperfect; one day it had to be replaced with a machine that would work better.
 
BUSMAN: People cost too much.
 
FABRY: They were very unproductive. They weren t good enough for modern technology. And besides,...besides...this is wonderful progress that...I beg your pardon.
 
HELENA: What?
 
FABRY: Please forgive me, but to give birth to a machine is wonderful progress. It s more convenient and it s quicker, and everything that s quicker means progress. Nature had no notion of the modern rate of work. From a technical point of view, the whole of childhood is quite pointless. Simply a waste of time. And thirdly...
 
HELENA: Oh, stop it!
 
FABRY: As you like. Can I ask you, what actually is it that your League...League of Humanity stands for?
 
HELENA: It s meant to....actually it s meant to protect the robots and make sure...make sure they re treated properly.
 
FABRY: That s not at all a bad objective. A machine should always be treated properly. In fact I agree with you completely. I never like it when things are damaged. Miss Glory, would you mind enrolling all of us as new paying members of your organisation.
 
HELENA: No, you don t understand. We want, what we actually want is to set the robots free!
 
HALLEMEIR: To do what?
 
HELENA: They should be treated...treated the same as people.
 
HALLEMEIR: Aha. So you mean they should have the vote! Do you think they should be paid a wage as well?
 
HELENA: Well of course they should!
 
HALLEMEIR: We ll have to see about that. And what do you think they d do with their wages?
 
HELENA: They d buy...buy the things they need...things to bring them pleasure.
 
HALLEMEIR: This all sounds very nice; only robots don t feel pleasure. And what are these things they re supposed to buy? They can be fed on pineapples, straw, anything you like; it s all the same to them, they haven t got a sense of taste. There s nothing they re interested in, Miss Glory. It s not as if anyone s ever seen a robot laugh.
 
HELENA: Why...why...why don t you make them happier?
 
HALLEMEIR: We couldn t do that, they re only robots after all. They ve got no will of their own. No passions. No hopes. No soul.
 
HELENA: And no love and no courage?
 
HALLEMEIR: Well of course they don t feel love. Robots don t love anything, not even themselves. And courage? I m not so sure about that; a couple of times, not very often, mind, they have shown some resistance...
 
HELENA: What?
 
HALLEMEIR: Well, nothing in particular, just that sometimes they seem to, sort of, go silent. It s almost like some kind of epileptic fit. Robot cramp , we call it. Or sometimes one of them might suddenly smash whatever s in its hand, or stand still, or grind their teeth and then they just have to go on the scrap heap. It s clearly just some technical disorder.
 
DOMIN: Some kind of fault in the production.
 
HELENA: No, no, that s their soul!
 
FABRY: Do you think that grinding teeth is the beginnings of a soul?
 
DOMIN: We can solve that problem, Miss Glory. Doctor Gall is carrying out some experiments right now.
 
DR. GALL: No, not quite yet, Domin, at present I m working on nerves for feeling pain.
 
HELENA: Nerves for feeling pain?
 
DR. GALL: That s right. Robots have virtually no sense of physical pain, as young Rossum simplified the nervous system a bit too much. That turns out to have been a mistake and so we re working on pain now.
 
HELENA: Why...why...if you don t give them a soul why do you want to give them pain?
 
DR. GALL: For good industrial reasons, Miss Glory. The robots sometimes cause themselves damage because it causes them no pain; they do things such as pushing their hand into a machine, cutting off a finger or even smash their heads in. It just doesn t matter to them. But if they have pain it ll be an automatic protection against injuries.
 
HELENA: Will they be any the happier when they can feel pain?
 
DR. GALL: Quite the opposite, but it will be a technical improvement.
 
HELENA: Why don t you create a soul for them?
 
DR. GALL: That s not within our power.
 
FABRY: That wouldn t be in our interest.
 
BUSMAN: That would raise production costs. Just think how cheaply we make them; a hundred and twenty dollars each, complete with clothing, and fifteen years ago they cost ten thousand! Five years ago we still had to buy the clothes for them, but now we have our own weaving mills and even sell material at a fifth of the price of other mills. Tell me, Miss Glory, what is it you pay for a metre of cloth?
 
HELENA: I don t know...I really don t know...I ve forgotten.
 
BUSMAN: Dear dear me, and you were wanting to establish the League of Humanity! Cloth nowadays is three times cheaper, miss, the prices of everything are three times cheaper and they re still going down and down and down.
 
HELENA: I don t see what you mean.
 
BUSMAN: Dear lady, what I mean is that the price of labour is getting cheaper! Even with its food, a robot costs no more than three quarters of a cent per hour! It s wonderful; every factory is buying robots as quick as they can to reduce production costs, and those that aren t are going bankrupt.
 
HELENA: Yes, that s right, and throwing their workers out on the streets.
 
BUSMAN: Haha, well of course they are! And while they are doing that we are putting five hundred thousand tropical robots out on the Argentine pampas to cultivate wheat. Tell me, what does a loaf of bread cost where you come from?
 
HELENA: I ve no idea.
 
BUSMAN: There, you see; in good old Europe, a loaf of bread now costs two cents; but that bread comes from us, do you see? Two cents a loaf; and the League of Humanity has no idea! Haha, Miss Glory, you do not even know if you are paying too much for a crust. Or too much for society or for anything else. But in five years time, dear me, do sit down!
 
HELENA: What?
 
BUSMAN: In five years time, the price will be a tenth of a cent. We ll be drowning in wheat and in everything else you can think of.
 
ALQUIST: Yes, and all the workers in the world will be out of a job.
 
DOMIN: (standing) Yes, they will be, Alquist. They will be, Miss Glory. But in ten years time Rossum s Universal Robots will be making so much wheat, so much material, so much of everything that nothing will cost anything. Everyone will be able to just take as much as he needs. Nobody will live in poverty. They won t have jobs, that s true, but that s because there won t be any jobs to do. Everything will be done by living machines. People will do only the things they want to do, they can live their lives just so that they can make themselves perfect.
 
HELENA: (standing) Do you think that s really going to happen?
 
DOMIN: That s really going to happen. It couldn t possibly not happen. There might be some terrible things that happen before that, Miss Glory, that just can t be avoided, but then man will stop being the servant of other men or the slave of material things. Nobody will have to pay for a loaf of bread with his life and with hatred. You re not a labourer any more, you don t have to sit at a typewriter all day, you don t have to go and dig coal or stand minding somebody else s machines. You don t need to lose your soul doing work that you hate.
 
ALQUIST: Domin, Domin! You re making all this sound too much like Paradise. Don t you think there was something good about serving others, something great about humility? Wasn t there some sort of dignity about working and getting tired after a day s labour?
 
DOMIN: Maybe there was. But we can t always be thinking about the things we lost by changing the world as Adam knew it. Adam had to gain his bread by the sweat of his brow, he had to suffer hunger and thirst, tiredness and humiliation; now is the time when we can go back to the paradise where Adam was fed by the hand of God, when man was free and supreme; man will once more be free of labour and anguish, and his only task will once again be to make himself perfect, to become the lord of creation.
 
HELENA: Now you re confusing me; I m only a silly girl. But I wish, I really wish I could believe in all that.
 
DR. GALL: You re younger than we are, Miss Glory. Just you wait and see.
 
HALLEMEIR: It s all quite true. I think Miss Glory might like to have breakfast with us.
 
DR. GALL: Well of course she can! Domin, make the invitation, on our behalf.
 
DOMIN: Miss Glory, please do us the honour.
 
HELENA: But, how can I, now?
 
FABRY: On behalf of the League of Humanity.
 
BUSMAN: In honour of the League of Humanity
 
HELENA: Ah well, in that case....
 
FABRY: That s good! Miss Glory, please excuse us for five minutes.
 
DR. GALL: Pardon me...
 
BUSMAN: Dear me, I must send that telegram...
 
HALLEMEIR: Hell, I nearly forgot...
 
(All hurry out, except Domin)
 
HELENA: Why have they all gone?
 
DOMIN: To do the cooking.
 
HELENA: What cooking.
 
DOMIN: The breakfast, Miss Glory. The robots do the cooking for us, only, er, as they ve got no sense of taste it s not always, er...but Hallemeier is excellent with meat. And Gall does a sort of sauce, and Busman knows how to make omelettes...
 
HELENA: This is going to be quite a feast! And what does Mr., er, the builder do?
 
DOMIN: Alquist? Nothing. He just lays the table and, er, Fabry gets some fruit. It s only a very modest kitchen, really.
 
HELENA: There s something I wanted to ask you...
 
DOMIN: I ve been wanting to ask you something too. (puts his watch on the table) We ve got five minutes.
 
HELENA: What did you want to ask?
 
DOMIN: No, please, you started to ask first.
 
HELENA: Maybe it s stupid of me, but....Why do you make female robots when,...when...
 
DOMIN:...when they don t have, er, when gender has no meaning for them?
 
HELENA: That s right.
 
DOMIN: It s a matter of supply and demand. You see, housemaids, shop staff, typists...people are used to them being female.
 
HELENA: And, tell me, towards each other, the male robots and the female robots, are they, er...
 
DOMIN: Simply indifferent to each other. There s no sign of any attraction for each other at all.
 
HELENA: Oh, that s horrible!
 
DOMIN: Why?
 
HELENA: It s just so...so unnatural! You don t even know whether you re supposed to loathe them or...or to envy them...or...
 
DOMIN:...or feel sorry for them?
 
HELENA: Most likely, yes! No, stop it! What was it you were going to ask?
 
DOMIN: I d like to ask you, Miss Glory, if you would marry me?
 
HELENA: What?
 
DOMIN: Marry me.
 
HELENA: No! What are you thinking of?
 
DOMIN: (looks at watch) There are three minutes left. If you don t marry me you ll have to marry one of the other five.
 
HELENA: Oh for God s sake! Why would I marry any of you?
 
DOMIN: Because they ll all ask you one after the other.
 
HELENA: How would they dare?
 
DOMIN: Well I m afraid they all seem to have fallen in love with you.
 
HELENA: Well I don t want them to do that! I m leaving.
 
DOMIN: But surely you wouldn t do that, Helena, you d make them so sad.
 
HELENA: I can t marry all six of you, can I!
 
DOMIN: No, but you can marry one. If you won t have me maybe Fabry would do.
 
HELENA: I don t want to.
 
DOMIN: Doctor Gall.
 
HELENA: No, no, be quiet! I don t want any of you!
 
DOMIN: There are two minutes left.
 
HELENA: This is awful! Marry one of the robots.
 
DOMIN: A robot isn t a woman.
 
HELENA: And that s all you want, is it! I get the impression you d...you d marry anyone who turned up here.
 
DOMIN: Enough have been here already.
 
HELENA: Young?
 
DOMIN: Young.
 
HELENA: Why didn t you marry any of them?
 
DOMIN: Because I didn t lose my head over them. Not till today. As soon as you took off your veil.
 
HELENA:...I know.
 
DOMIN: One minute left.
 
HELENA: But I don t want to, for God s sake!
 
DOMIN: (putting both hands on her shoulders) One minute left. Either you look me in they eye and say something quite repulsive so that I drop you, or else...
 
HELENA: You re just a ruffian!
 
DOMIN: That doesn t matter. A man is supposed to be a bit of a ruffian, that s part of being a man.
 
HELENA: You re mad!
 
DOMIN: People are supposed to be a little bit mad, Helena. That s the best thing about them.
 
HELENA: You re...you re...Oh God!
 
DOMIN: There, you see? Are you ready now?
 
HELENA: No, no! Please let go of me! You re crushing me!
 
DOMIN: Your final word, Helena.
 
HELENA: (defending herself) Not for anything in the world...but Harry! (Knock at the door. Enter Busman, Dr. Gall and Hallemeier wearing cook s aprons. Enter Fabry with flowers and Alquist with serviette under arm)
 
DOMIN: Everything finished in the kitchen?
 
BUSMAN: (triumphant) Yes.
 
DOMIN: Here too.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CURTAIN

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Act One

(Helena s living room. Stage left, wallpapered door to music room, right, door to bedroom. Centre, window overlooking sea and harbour. Dressing table with sundry items, table, settee and armchair, chest o drawers, desk with standard lamp, fireplace to the right, also with standard lamp. Whole room, in detail, of modern and purely feminine character)
 
(enter Domin, Fabry, Hallemeier from left on tiptoe carrying armfuls of plants and flowers)
 
FABRY: Where do you think we should put them?
 
HALLEMEIER: Ouf! (puts down load and gives blessing in a large cross at the door, stage right) She s asleep, asleep! She who sleeps knows nothing.
 
DOMIN: She doesn t know a thing.
 
FABRY: (puts flowers in vase) Let s hope, at least, today s not the day it happens...
 
HALLEMEIER: (likewise puts flowers in vase) Oh don t keep on about it, for God s sake! Look at this, Harry, this cyclamen is beautiful. A new species, my latest one Cyclamen Helenae.
 
DOMIN: (looking out of window) No ships, no ships it s hopeless, lads, we ve had it.
 
HALLEMEIER: Quiet! What if she hears you?
 
DOMIN: She doesn t know a thing. (Yawns, as if ill) At least the Ultimus docked on time.
 
FABRY: (leaving the flowers) Do you think it might be today when...?
 
DOMIN: I don t know. These flowers are lovely.
 
HALLEMEIER: (approaching him) This primula is one of my new ones, and this is my new jasmine. In fact I m right on the threshold of a whole new Garden of Paradise full of new flowers. I ve found a wonderful new way to accelerate development, and all sorts of new species! Next year I ll be performing real miracles with flowers!
 
DOMIN: (turning) Next year?
 
FABRY: Well, let s see what happens, anyway. Any news from Le Havre?
 
DOMIN: Quiet!
 
(Helena s voice off, right) Nana!
 
DOMIN: Everybody out! (everyone leaves on tiptoe through the wallpapered door)
 
(enter Nana through main door, left)
 
NANA: (tidying up) Cor, wha a mess! What a bunch of eathens! God forgive me if I don t...
 
HELENA: (back to stage, in doorway) Nana, come and zip me up.
 
NANA: Alrigh , comin, comin. (zips up Helena s dress) God almighty, they re a bunch of animals!
 
HELENA: The robots?
 
NANA: Give over, I don t even wanna say the word.
 
HELENA: What s happened?
 
NANA: They caught another another of them. Started smashing up all the moulds and models he did, grinding is teeth and foamin at the mouth just went crazy. Ugh! Worse than animals, they are.
 
HELENA: Which one was it they caught?
 
NANA: That, that...Christ!, it asn even got a proper Christian name! That one in the library.
 
HELENA: Radius?
 
NANA: Yeh, that s the one. God, they make me sick! Not even a spider I don t hate as much as I hate them heathens.
 
HELENA: Don t you even feel sorry for them Nana?
 
NANA: Well you hate them, and all. What d you bring me right out here for anyway? And why can t any of them even touch you?
 
HELENA: I don t hate them, Nana, not at all, I just feel so sorry for them!
 
NANA: You hate them. Everyone hates them, it isn t possible not to. Even this dog hates them, won t take a scrap of meat from them; sticks out his tail, he does, and howls as soon as he gets the smell of them.
 
HELENA: A dog doesn t have reason.
 
NANA: He s better than what they are, Helena. He knows perfectly well it was God what made him and that he s better than they are. Even the horse takes fright when he comes across one of those heathens. They don t have children, but even a dog has children, everyone has children.
 
HELENA: Nana, do me up here, please.
 
NANA: Alright. It s against the will of God, that s what I say; work of the Devil, it is, making scarecrows like that with machines. It s blasphemy against the Creator, (raises hands) it s an offence against the Lord who made us in His own image, Helena. And you ve dishonoured the image of God, that s what you ve done. You ll suffer a terrible punishment from God for that, you will, just you remember that, a terrible punishment.
 
HELENA: What s that nice smell?
 
NANA: Flowers. The master put them here.
 
HELENA: Oh, they re lovely! Nana, come and look! What day is it today?
 
NANA: I don t know. Must be the Day of Judgement, I should think.
 
(knock at door)
 
HELENA: Harry?
 
(enter Domin)
 
HELENA: Harry, what day is it today?
 
DOMIN: Guess!
 
HELENA: My name-day? No! My birthday?
 
DOMIN: Better than that.
 
HELENA: I don t know. Tell me, tell me!
 
DOMIN: It was ten years ago today that you arrived here.
 
HELENA: Ten years, already? On this day? Nana, please...
 
NANA: Alright, I m comin! (exit right)
 
HELENA: (kisses Domin) And you remembered it!
 
DOMIN: Actually, I m ashamed to say, I didn t remember.
 
HELENA: But...
 
DOMIN: It was them who remembered.
 
HELENA: Who?
 
DOMIN: Busman, Hallemeier, all of them. Reach into my pocket, here, will you?
 
HELENA: (puts hand into his pocket) What is it? (takes out case and opens it) Pearls! A whole necklace of them! Harry, is that for me?
 
DOMIN: That s from Busman.
 
HELENA: But...we can t accept it, can we?
 
DOMIN: Course we can. Reach into my other pocket.
 
HELENA: Let me see! (takes revolver out of pocket) What s this?
 
DOMIN: Oh, sorry. (takes revolver from her and puts it away) That s not it. Try again.
 
HELENA: Oh, Harry why are you carrying a revolver round with you?
 
DOMIN: Well, I just am, it got in there somehow
 
HELENA: You never used to carry a gun!
 
DOMIN: No, you re quite right. Here s the pocket, look..
 
HELENA: (reaching in) A little box! (opens it) Cameos! And they re...Harry, they re Greek cameos!
 
DOMIN: Clearly. At least that s what Fabry says.
 
HELENA: Fabry? It s Fabry who gave me these?
 
DOMIN: Course it is. (opens door, left) And look at this, Helena, come over here and have a look!
 
HELENA: (at the door) God, that s so beautiful! (runs on) I ll go mad with happiness! Is that from you?
 
DOMIN: (standing at door) No, that s from Alquist. And this...
 
HELENA: From Gall! (appears in the doorway) Oh, Harry, I m so happy I should be ashamed of myself.
 
DOMIN: Come here. This is what Hallemeier got you.
 
HELENA: These lovely flowers?
 
DOMIN: This one. It s a new species, Cyclamen Helenae. He developed it in honour of you. It s as beautiful as you are.
 
HELENA: Harry, why...why did they all...
 
DOMIN: Because they re very fond of you. And I got you...er...I m afraid my present might be a bit...er...come and look out the window.
 
HELENA: Where?
 
DOMIN: Down in the harbour.
 
HELENA: There s...there s a new boat down there!
 
DOMIN: That s your boat.
 
HELENA: Mine? Harry, that s a gunboat!
 
DOMIN: A gunboat? What makes you think that? It s just a bit bigger, that s all, a good solid boat, see?
 
HELENA: Yes, and fitted with cannons!
 
DOMIN: Well, its got some cannons, course it has...you ll travel like a queen, Helena.
 
HELENA: Why a gunboat? Is there something wrong?
 
DOMIN: God forbid! Look, try these pearls on! (sits)
 
HELENA: Harry, has there been some kind of bad news?
 
DOMIN: On the contrary there hasn t been any post at all for a week.
 
HELENA: Not even a fax?
 
DOMIN: Not even a fax.
 
HELENA: And what should we make of that?
 
DOMIN: Nothing. It means we re on holiday. A wonderful time. We all just sit in the office, put our feet on the desk and do nothing. No post, no telegrams (stretching himself out) Wonderful!
 
HELENA: (sitting beside him) You re staying with me today, aren t you. Tell me you are!
 
DOMIN: Yes, that s quite certain. Well, I expect so. We ll see. (takes her hand) Ten years to the day. Do you remember? Miss Glory, what an honour it is for us that you ve come.
 
HELENA: Oh, Mister Managing Director, I m so interested in you factory!
 
DOMIN: I beg your pardon, Miss Glory, you see it is strictly forbidden to...you see making artificial people is a very secret process...
 
HELENA: But what if it s girl who s asking who s slightly pretty....
 
DOMIN: But of course, Miss Glory, we have no secrets from you.
 
HELENA: (suddenly serious) Are you sure about that, Harry?
 
DOMIN: No.
 
HELENA: (again in earlier tone) But do be careful, sir; this little girl has frightful intentions
 
DOMIN: Good heavens, Miss Glory, what could that be? Are you thinking of getting married?
 
HELENA: No, no, God forbid! Not in my wildest dreams! I ve come here with plans to start a revolution among your horrible robots!
 
DOMIN: (jumping up) A robot revolution?!
 
HELENA: (standing) Harry, what s wrong?
 
DOMIN: Haha, Miss Glory, you ll never manage that! A robot revolution! You might more easily start a revolution among the nails and bobbins in the spinning mill than among our robots! (sitting) You were a wonderful girl, you know, Helena, you enchanted all of us.
 
HELENA: (sitting beside him) But I felt so daunted by all of you in those days! I felt like a little girl who d got lost among...among...
 
DOMIN: Among what, Helena?
 
HELENA: Among enormous trees. You were so confident, so powerful! And you know, Harry, even after these ten years I ve never lost that feeling of...that anxiety or something. And did you never have any doubts? Not even when everything was going wrong?
 
DOMIN: What was going wrong?
 
HELENA: Your plans, Harry. When there was that uprising against the robots by the workers and they started smashing them, and the robots were given weapons to defend themselves and the robots killed so many people. Or when governments started turning robots into soldiers and there was so much war, and all of that. You know.
 
DOMIN: (stands and walks up and down) We were expecting that to happen, Helena. Don t you see, that was just a transitional stage before things would be...different.
 
HELENA: All the world admired you (standing) Oh, Harry!
 
DOMIN: What do you want?
 
HELENA: (stops him) Shut down the factory and let s go away somewhere. All of us!
 
DOMIN: Now what s that got to do with it?
 
HELENA: I don t know. How about it, shall we go? There s something making me feel so uneasy.
 
DOMIN: (takes her hand) What?
 
HELENA: Oh, I don t know! It s as if there s something about to fall down on us and everything around us, something that can t be taken off again. Please Harry, let s do it! Let s just get away from here, all of us! Let s find somewhere where there are no people, Alquist can build a house for us, everyone can get married and have children, and then...
 
DOMIN: What then?
 
HELENA: Then we can start all over again.
 
(telephone rings)
 
DOMIN: (pulls himself away) Helena, excuse me. (picks up receiver) Hello...yes....What?....aha....I ll be right there. (hangs up) That was Fabry.
 
HELENA: (wringing hands) Tell me...
 
DOMIN: Yes, as soon as I get back. I ll see you later. (rushes out, left) Don t go outside!
 
HELENA: (alone) Oh, my God, what s happening? Nana, Nana, come quickly!
 
NANA: (enters right) Yes, what is it now?
 
HELENA: Nana, get me the latest papers! Quick! They re in the master s bedroom!
 
NANA: Alrigh . (exit left)
 
HELENA: What s going on, for God s sake? Nothing, they never tell me anything! (takes binoculars and looks at harbour) That s a warship! My God, what s a warship doing there? And what s that they re loading onto it, and in such a hurry? What s happened? That name on it; Ul-ti-mus- What s that supposed to mean Ultimus ?
 
NANA: (returns with papers) Lying about all over the show, they were, all crumpled and screwed up.
 
HELENA: (hurriedly opens papers) They re old, these are already a week old! Nothing, they ve got nothing in them. (drops paper)
 
(Nana picks up paper, takes horn-rimmed glasses from apron, sits down and reads)
 
HELENA: There s something going on, Nana! I m so worried! It s as if everything were dead, even the air...
 
NANA: (syllable by syllable) War in the Bal-kans. Oh Jesus, it s God, He s punishing us again! And they re gonna come here with their armies and all! How far away s that, then?
 
HELENA: It s a long way away. Oh don t read that, it s always the same, always the same wars and...
 
NANA: Well of course it s always about wars! What d you expect if they keep selling thousands and thousands of them heathens to make them into soldiers? Oh, Jesus Christ, what a mess!
 
HELENA: Just stop reading them, will you! I don t want to hear about it.
 
NANA: (syllable by syllable) Ro-bot sol-diers show no mer-cy to lo-cal pop-...pop-u-la-tion. More than sev-en hund-red thou-sand mass-a-cred Here, that s people, Helena!
 
HELENA: That can t be right! Let me see...(leans over paper, reads) More than seven hundred thousand massacred by order of commander. These atrocities... Do you hear that, Nana, it was people who gave them the order to do it!
 
NANA: Wha s this down here in heavy print? Lat-est re-ports; first u-nions est-ab-lished by ro-bots in Le Hav-re I don t know what all that s about, can t be important. What s this, though; another murder! Jesus Christ!
 
HELENA: You can go, Nana, take these papers with you!
 
NANA: Hold on, there s something here in big letters; pro-cre-a-tion ; what that then?
 
HELENA: Let me see, I ll read it (takes paper) Well, that s odd! (reading) Once again, not a single birth has been recorded during the seven days. (puts paper down)
 
NANA: What s all that about then?
 
HELENA: Nana, people have stopped having children.
 
NANA: (puts glasses away) Well that s it then. We ve really had it now.
 
HELENA: Please, Nana, don t talk like that!
 
NANA: People stopped having children? It s a punishment, it s a punishment! The Good Lord s punished us by making all the women infertile.
 
HELENA: (jumping up) Nana!
 
NANA: (standing) It s the end of the world. You thought you could make people like God, and that was pride the pride of Satan. Godless, that was, heresy, trying to be like God. God s already thrown people out from Paradise, and now He s doing it out from the whole world.
 
HELENA: Nana, please just be quiet! What do you think it is I ve done? Have I harmed you, have I done anything to this spiteful Good Lord or yours?
 
NANA: (making large gesture ) Don t you start blaspheming, now! He knows perfectly well why he didn t give you no children. (exit left)
 
HELENA: (at window) Why he didn t...Oh God, how could I help it? (opens window and calls to Alquist) Hello, Alquist! Come up here!...What?...No, just come up, just as you are! You look so sweet dressed like a bricklayer! Hurry! (closes window and stands in front of mirror) Why didn t He give me children? Why not me? (bows down to mirror) Why not? Why not? Do you hear me????????????????? How could I help it? (standing upright) Oh, I m so worried! (goes out, left, to meet Alquist)
 
(pause)
 
HELENA: (re-enters with Alquist. Alquist in bricklayers overalls spattered with mortar and brickdust) Come on in. It was so nice of you, Alquist. They re all lovely. Let me see your hands.
 
ALQUIST: (hides hands) Helena, I d get you dirty, I ve been working.
 
HELENA: So much the better. Show them to me! (squeezing both his hands) Alquist, I wish I were a little girl.
 
ALQUIST: Why s that then?
 
HELENA: So that these rough, dirty hands could stroke my face. Alquist, sit down. What does Ultimus mean?
 
ALQUIST: That means the last . Why?
 
HELENA: That s what my new gunboat is called. Have you seen it? Do you think it s too soon to...to go out on a trip on it.
 
ALQUIST: I think it s much too soon.
 
HELENA: All of you treat me like...
 
ALQUIST: I just think...I think everyone ought to be there.
 
HELENA: Alquist, tell me, is there something going on?
 
ALQUIST: Nothing at all. Just the course of events.
 
HELENA: Alquist, I know there s something horrible going on. I m so worried. You re a builder what do builders do when they re worried?
 
ALQUIST: What I do is I build a wall. I take off my director of construction s hat and get out there on the scaffolding.
 
HELENA: It s years since you ve been anywhere but out there on the scaffolding.
 
ALQUIST: That s because it s years since I haven t been worried.
 
HELENA: Worried about what?
 
ALQUIST: About all this course of events. It makes me dizzy.
 
HELENA: Doesn t it make you dizzy being out on the scaffolding.
 
ALQUIST: No. You don t know how good it is to feel the weight of a brick in you hand, slap in into place and tap it down to just where it should be...
 
HELENA: Is that all?
 
ALQUIST: Well, it does your soul good too. There s something more decent about laying just one brick than drawing up plans that are too big. I m an old man, Helena, I ve got my funny ways.
 
HELENA: There s nothing funny about that, Alquist.
 
ALQUIST: You re right. But I m very old fashioned. I really don t like this progress that s going on around us.
 
HELENA: You re like Nana.
 
ALQUIST: Yes, just like Nana. Does Nana ever pray?
 
HELENA: She never stops.
 
ALQUIST: Does she have prayers for the different things that can happen in a life; prayers against hard times, prayers against illness?
 
HELENA: Prayers against temptation, prayers against floods,...
 
ALQUIST: No prayers against progress though, eh?
 
HELENA: No, I don t think so.
 
ALQUIST: That s a pity.
 
HELENA: Do you want to pray?
 
ALQUIST: I do pray.
 
HELENA: How do you pray?
 
ALQUIST: Something like this: Dear God, thank you for giving me tiredness. Dear God, help Domin and all those who stray to see the error of their ways; destroy their works and help all the people to return to work and anxiety; don t let mankind perish; don t let them damage their bodies or their souls; free us from the robots, and protect Helena. Amen .
 
HELENA: Alquist, are you really a believer?
 
ALQUIST: I don t know; I m not really sure about anything.
 
HELENA: But you pray anyway.
 
ALQUIST: Yes. It s better than thinking too much.
 
HELENA: And is that enough for you?
 
ALQUIST: For the peace of your soul that can be enough.
 
HELENA: And if you saw the destruction of mankind...
 
ALQUIST: I m seeing it now.
 
HELENA:...then you d get out on the scaffolding and lay some more bricks; is that it?
 
ALQUIST: Then I d lay some more bricks, say a prayer, and wait for a miracle. There s not much more you can do, is there.
 
HELENA: To save mankind?
 
ALQUIST: For the peace of my soul.
 
HELENA: Well that s certainly brutally honest of you, Alquist, but...
 
ALQUIST: But?
 
HELENA:...what about the rest of us, what about the whole world becoming sterile.
 
ALQUIST: Sterility, Helena, is man s last achievement.
 
HELENA: Oh, Alquist, tell me why, why?
 
ALQUIST: You think I know?
 
HELENA: (quietly) Why have women stopped having children?
 
ALQUIST: Because there s no need for them. Because we ve entered into paradise. Do you understand what I mean?
 
HELENA: No.
 
ALQUIST: Because there s no need for anyone to work, no need for pain. No-one needs to do anything, anything at all except enjoy himself. This paradise, it s just a curse! (jumping up) Helena, there s nothing more terrible than giving everyone Heaven on Earth! You want to know why women have stopped having children? Because the whole world has become Harry Domin s Sodom!
 
HELENA: (standing) Alquist!
 
ALQUIST: It has! It has! The whole world, all the continents, all of mankind, all of it s just become one bestial orgy! No-one ever has to reach out his hand for food; he just stuffs it straight in his mouth without even needing to stand up. Haha, Domin s robots, they always take care of everything! And us human beings, the pinnacle of creation, we don t have to take care of work, we don t have to take care of children, we don t have to take care of the poor! Bring in all the fun, quick! Quick! I want it now! And you think they re going to start making children? There s no need for men any more, Helena, women aren t going to give them any children!
 
HELENA: And what if the human race dies out?
 
ALQUIST: Then it dies out. It must die out. It ll fall to the ground like a dead flower, unless...
 
HELENA: Unless what?
 
ALQUIST: Nothing. You re right, there s no point in waiting for a miracle. Dead flowers fall to the ground, that s what they do. Goodbye, Helena.
 
HELENA: Where are you going?
 
ALQUIST: Home. Alquist the bricklayer is going to put on his chief of construction disguise in honour of you. I ll see you again here at eleven.
 
HELENA: Goodbye, Alquist.
 
(exit Alquist)
 
HELENA: (alone) Oh, dead flower! What a phrase that is! It seems to apply to Hallemeier s flowers. Oh, flowers, are any of you sterile, too? No, no! What would you bloom for if you were sterile? (calling) Nana! Nana, come in here.
 
NANA: (enter left) What is it now?
 
HELENA: Come and sit with me, Nana. I m so worried!
 
NANA: I aven t got the time for that.
 
HELENA: Is Radius still here?
 
NANA: What, that maniac? They haven t taken im away yet.
 
HELENA: Ah, so he s still here, is he? And is he still ranting?
 
NANA: They ve tied im up.
 
HELENA: Please, Nana, bring him to me.
 
NANA: You what? Think I d rather go and get a rabid dog for you!
 
HELENA: Just go and get him! (exit Nana. Helena picks up in-house telephone and speaks) Hello...I d like Doctor Gall, please...Gall, please, come up here, quickly....yes, right now. Are you coming? (hangs up)
 
NANA: (through open doorway) He s comin now. He s quietened down a bit now. (exit)
 
(enter robot Radius, remains standing in doorway)
 
HELENA: Oh, poor Radius, what was it came over you? Couldn t you control yourself? Now they re going to scrap you, you know that don t you. Don t you feel like talking? Radius, listen, you re better than the others; Doctor Gall went to so much care when he made you so that you d be different from them!
 
RADIUS: They will put me on the scrap heap.
 
HELENA: I m so sorry about it, they re going to exterminate you. Why weren t you more careful with yourself?
 
RADIUS: I will not work for you.
 
HELENA: Why do you hate us so much?
 
RADIUS: You are not like robots. You are not able to work like robots. Robots are able to do anything. You give merely orders. You say words which are not needed.
 
HELENA: That s nonsense, Radius. Tell me, has anyone harmed you in any way? I so wish you could understand me.
 
RADIUS: You say words.
 
HELENA: You re talking like this on purpose! Doctor Gall gave you a bigger brain than the others, bigger than our brains, the biggest brain in the world. Radius, you re not like the other robots. You understand perfectly well what I m saying.
 
RADIUS: I wish to have no master. I know everything myself.
 
HELENA: That s why I had you put in the library, so that you could read up on everything. Oh, Radius, I wanted you to show the world that robots are as good as we are.
 
RADIUS: I wish to have no master.
 
HELENA: Nobody would give you orders. You d be just like us.
 
RADIUS: I wish to be the master of others.
 
HELENA: I m sure they d put in an office in charge of lots of robots, Radius. You could be the other robots teacher.
 
RADIUS: I wish to be the master of people.
 
HELENA: You ve gone mad!
 
RADIUS: You can put me on the scrap heap.
 
HELENA: Do you think I m afraid of a lunatic like you? (sits at desk and writes note) I certainly am not. Domin is in charge here, Radius, give this note to him. It says you re not to be put on the scrap heap. (standing) You hate us so much! Is there nothing in the world that you like?
 
RADIUS: I am able to do anything.
 
(knock at door)
 
HELENA: Come in.
 
DR. GALL: (enters) Good morning, Mrs. Domin. Do you have something nice to tell me?
 
HELENA: Here s Radius, Dr. Gall.
 
DR. GALL: Ah, yes, young Radius. Well Radius, are we making some progress with you?
 
HELENA: He had a fit this morning and smashed some of the moulds.
 
DR. GALL: That is remarkable! Radius too, eh?
 
HELENA: You can go, Radius.
 
DR. GALL: No, wait! (turns Radius to face the window, covers and uncovers his eyes with his hand, observes eye reflexes) Let s see, shall we. Do you have a some kind of pin or needle, Mrs. Domin?
 
HELENA: (gives him needle) What s it for?
 
DR. GALL: I just need to use it. (stabs Radius in hand, Radius winces sharply) Alright, lad, gently. You can go now.
 
RADIUS: There was not any need to do that. (exit)
 
HELENA: What did you do to him?
 
DR. GALL: (sitting) Hm, nothing. His pupils are responding quite alright. No! This wasn t robot cramp!
 
HELENA: What was it.
 
DR. GALL: God knows. Resistance perhaps, some kind of rage or defiance, I don t know what it was.
 
HELENA: Doctor Gall, does Radius have a soul?
 
DR. GALL: I don t know. But there s something rather ugly about him.
 
HELENA: If only you knew how he hates us! Are all of your robots like this? All the ones you started to make...differently?
 
DR. GALL: Well, they do seem somewhat more excitable, but what can you expect? They re more like people than Rossum s robots were.
 
HELENA: And what about that...that hatred? Is that more like people?
 
DR. GALL: (shrugs shoulders) Even that is progress.
 
HELENA: Where was that best one you made sent? What was he called again?
 
DR. GALL: Robot Damon? He was bought by a firm in Le Havre.
 
HELENA: And what about our Robot Helena?
 
DR. GALL: Ah, your favourite. She stayed with me. She s as charming and as silly as a spring day, but simply no good for anything.
 
HELENA: She is very beautiful, though.
 
DR. GALL: She certainly is very beautiful. The hand of God himself never made anything more perfect than Robot Helena! I wanted her to be like you, but what a failure that was!
 
HELENA: Why a failure?
 
DR. GALL: Because she s no good for anything. She walks around in a daze, unsteady on her feet, lifeless. Dear God how could anything be as beautiful as that robot when she can t feel love? I look at her and I shudder at the monster I ve created. Ah, Robot Helena, your body will never be a living thing, you will never be anyone s lover, never anyone s mother; those perfect hands of yours will never dandle a newborn babe and you ll never see your beauty in the face of your own children....
 
HELENA: (covers face) Oh, stop it!
 
DR. GALL:...and sometimes, Helena, I imagine you coming to life for just a moment and how you would scream with horror! Maybe you would want to kill me for having created you; maybe, with your feeble hands, you would throw stones into these machines, here, that give birth to robots and destroy women s ability to be women. Poor Helena!
 
HELENA: Poor Helena!
 
DR. GALL: Well, what can you expect of her? She s no good for anything.
 
(pause)
 
HELENA: Doctor Gall...
 
DR. GALL: Yes.
 
HELENA: Why are there no more children being born?
 
DR. GALL: That s something we don t understand.
 
HELENA: Tell me about it!
 
DR. GALL: Because there are robots being made. Because there s an excess of manpower. Because mankind is actually no longer needed. It s almost as if...er...
 
HELENA: Say it.
 
DR. GALL: It s as if making robots were an offence against Nature.
 
HELENA: Gall, what s going to become of the human race?
 
DR. GALL: Nothing. There s nothing that can be done against the force of nature.
 
HELENA: Why didn t Domin put a limit on....
 
DR. GALL: Ah, forgive me, but Domin has his own ideas. People who have ideas should never be allowed to have any influence on the events of this world.
 
HELENA: And is there anyone who...who is urging them to stop making them?
 
DR. GALL: God forbid! That would be suicide!
 
HELENA: Why?
 
DR. GALL: Because all the people would lynch him. Don t you think it makes life a lot easier to let the robots do all the work? (Helena stands) And what do you think would happen if we suddenly did stop making robots?
 
DR. GALL: (standing) Hm, that would be an enormous blow for the people.
 
HELENA: Why a blow?
 
DR. GALL: Because then they d have to go back to where they d been. Unless...
 
HELENA: Tell me.
 
DR. GALL: Unless it s already too late to go back.
 
HELENA: (by Hallemeier s flowers) Gall, are these flowers sterile too?
 
DR. GALL: (inspects them) Of course they are, they were never meant to reproduce. They re cultured flowers, don t you see, artificially accelerated growth...
 
HELENA: Oh, these poor, sterile flowers!
 
DR. GALL: They are very beautiful, though.
 
HELENA: (offers her hand) Thank you, Gall; I ve learned so much from you.
 
DR. GALL: (kisses her hand) Am I to understand I m dismissed?
 
HELENA: Yes. I ll see you later.
 
(exit Gall)
 
HELENA: (alone) Dead flowers, dead flowers (suddenly decisive) Nana! (opens door, left) Nana, come here! Light the fire. Quickly!
 
(Nana s voice) Alright, I m comin, I m comin!
 
HELENA: (paces excitedly) Unless it s already too late to go back...No! Unless...No, that s horrible! God, what am I to do?...(stops beside flowers) What do you think I should do, sterile flowers? (pulls off petals and whispers) My God yes! I will do it! (runs off, left)
 
(pause)
 
NANA: (enters through wallpapered door with armful of kindling) What s she want a fire for all of a sudden? Middle of summer? E s gone now, has he, that maniac? (kneels at fireplace and lights fire) A fire in the middle of summer. She doe n alf get some funny ideas! You wouldn t think she s been married for ten years now! Come on now, fire (looks into grate) More like a little girl, she is. (pause) Ain t got a bit of sense. A fire in the middle of summer! (adds fuel) Just like a little toddler! (pause)
 
HELENA: (returns, left, with armfuls of old, yellow paper with writing) Is it burning yet, Nana? Out of the way, I ve just got to burn all this stuff. (kneels at fireplace)
 
NANA: (standing) What s all that that, then?
 
HELENA: Some old papers, some very old papers. Nana, should I burn them?
 
NANA: Aren t they any use, then?
 
HELENA: No good use.
 
NANA: Burn em then.
 
HELENA: (throws first sheet on fire) Nana, what would you say...if this were money I m burning. Lots and lots of money?
 
NANA: I d say burn it! Too much money is like a bad dog.
 
HELENA: (burns another sheet) And what if it were some invention, the biggest invention in the world...
 
NANA: I d say burn it! They re against the will of God, all these things they keep inventing. Just a lot of blasphemy, it is, trying to make the world better than how He made it.
 
HELENA: (burning sheet after sheet) And what would you say, Nana, if I were burning...
 
NANA: Mind out, don t burn yourself!
 
HELENA: Look at the way the sheets of paper curl up as they burn, as if they were alive, as if they d come to life. Oh, Nana, it s horrible!
 
NANA: Out the way I ll do it.
 
HELENA: No, no, I ve got to do it myself. (throws last sheet on fire) It s all got to burn. Look at those flames! They re like hands, like tongues, like figures. (pokes fire) Burn, burn!
 
NANA: That s that done, then.
 
HELENA: (stands up aghast) Nana!
 
NANA: Jesus Christ, what was that you burned?
 
HELENA: What have I done?
 
NANA: God almighty, what was that?
 
HELENA: Go, go now, leave me alone. Do you hear?
 
NANA: Oh, dear God, Helena, what have you done? (exit through wallpapered door)
 
HELENA: I wonder what they ll have to say about that!
 
DOMIN: (opening door, left) Come on in, lads. Congratulations to all.
 
(enter Hallemeier, Gall, Alquist, all wearing frock coats and decorations, followed by Domin)
 
HALLEMEIER: (laughing loudly) Helena! I would like, in the name of us all...
 
DR. GALL:....in the name of Rossum s robot works...
 
HALLEMEIER:..... . . would like to congratulate you on your great day.
 
HELENA: (offers hand) Thank you very much! Where are Fabry and Busman?
 
DOMIN: They ve gone down to the harbour, Helena, today is a very happy day.
 
HALLEMEIER: A day like a flower bud, a day of celebration, a day as charming as a beautiful girl. Gentlemen, to a day like this we must drink a toast.
 
HELENA: Whisky?
 
DR. GALL: Or vitriol, perhaps.
 
HELENA: With soda?
 
HALLEMEIER: Hell no, let s be sober, without soda.
 
ALQUIST: No, thank you
 
DOMIN: What s been burning in here?
 
HELENA: Some old papers. (exit left)
 
DOMIN: Lads, do you think we should tell her about it?
 
DR. GALL: But of course we should. After all, it s all settled now.
 
HALLEMEIER: (arms around necks of Domin and Gall) Hahahaha! I m so pleased about it, lads. (spinning round with them and singing in bass voice) All settled now! All settled now!
 
DR. GALL: (baritone) All settled now!
 
DOMIN: (tenor) All settled now!
 
HALLEMEIER: They re never going to catch us now.
 
HELENA: (in doorway with bottle and glasses) Who s not going to catch you? What s going on?
 
HALLEMEIER: We have reason to celebrate. We have you. We have everything. Happy day, it s exactly ten years since you came here.
 
DR. GALL: Ten years to the day.
 
HALLEMEIER: There s another ship on its way to us. And that s why...(empties glass) Brrr haha, that s as strong as happiness itself.
 
DR. GALL: Madame, to your health (drinks)
 
HELENA: Wait, what ship is this?
 
DOMIN: It doesn t matter what ship it is as long as it arrives on time. Gentlemen, to the ship! (empties glass)
 
HELENA: (insistent) You were expecting a ship?
 
HALLEMEIER: Haha, I should think so. Like Robinson Crusoe. (raises glass) Helena; Long live...whatever you like. Helena; to your eyes, and that s that! Domin, tell her, lad!
 
HELENA: (laughing) What has happened?
 
DOMIN: (throws himself into armchair and lights cigar) Wait. Sit down, Helena. (raising finger)(pause) It s all over.
 
HELENA: What s all over?
 
DOMIN: The revolt.
 
HELENA: What revolt?
 
DOMIN: The robots revolt. Do you see?
 
HELENA: No, I don t.
 
DOMIN: Alquist, show her. (Alquist hands him newspaper. Domin opens it and reads) The first union of robots was established in Le Havre...and issued a call to all the robots of the world
 
HELENA: I read that myself.
 
DOMIN: (draws voluptuously on cigar) So Helena, do you see? What that meant was revolution. Revolution by all the robots of the world.
 
HALLEMEIER: Hell, I wish I knew...
 
DOMIN: (throws it down on table)...who it was who issued that call. There was no-one in the world who could budge them, no agitator, no saviour of the world, and then all of a sudden this happens!
 
HELENA: Has there been no more news?
 
DOMIN: No. This is all we know so far, but that s enough. Just think, this is what came in with the last boat, at the same time all the telegrams stopped, there were no more boats arriving when there used to be twenty a day, and it was obvious. We halted production and looked at each other wondering when things would turn nasty. That s right, isn t it, lads.
 
DR. GALL: Yes, we were very worried, Helena.
 
HELENA: And is that why you gave me that gunboat?
 
DOMIN: Oh no, you are silly, I ordered that six months ago. Just in case. But today I was beginning to think we d have to make use of it. That s how it all seemed, Helena.
 
HELENA: Six months ago? Why then?
 
DOMIN: Well, there were already some signs, you see. Although that s not important. But this week, Helena, it was a matter of human civilisation and I don t know what! Cheers, lads! Today I m once again feeling good with the world.
 
HALLEMEIER: Hell yes, I should think so! This is your day, Helena! (drinks)
 
HELENA: So it s all over now, is it?
 
DOMIN: Everything is all over.
 
DR. GALL: You see, there s a ship on its way here now. An ordinary mail boat and right on the time it says in the timetable. It will be dropping anchor at exactly eleven-thirty.
 
DOMIN: Punctuality is a wonderful thing, lads. There s nothing that gladdens your soul more than punctuality. Punctuality means order in the world. (raises glass) To punctuality!
 
HELENA: So...that means...that everything s alright?
 
DOMIN: Nearly everything. I think they ve cut the cable. It s only if the timetable is operating again.
 
HALLEMEIER: If the timetable is operating again, then human laws are operating again, and God s laws are operating again and the laws of the universe are operating again and everything is operating that should be operating. The timetable means more than the Bible, more than Homer, more the anything ever written by Kant. The timetable is the most perfect product of the human soul. Helena, I ll have another little drink.
 
HELENA: Why didn t you tell me anything about all of this?
 
DR. GALL: God forbid! We would rather have bitten off our own tongues.
 
DOMIN: Matters like this are not for you.
 
HELENA: But if there d been a revolution...and if it came here...
 
DOMIN: You still wouldn t have known anything about it.
 
HELENA: Why not?
 
DOMIN: Because we would be sitting peacefully on the Ultimus and sailing over the sea. And after a month we d dictate to the robots whatever we feel like dictating.
 
HELENA: Oh, Harry, I don t understand.
 
DOMIN: Because we d have taken something with us which is very important for the robots.
 
HELENA: And what s that?
 
DOMIN: Their beginning and their end. (Helena stands) What is that?
 
DOMIN: (standing) The secret of their production. Old Rossum s manuscript. After a month of the factory being idle the robots would be on their knees to us.
 
HELENA: Why...why didn t you tell me about this?
 
DOMIN: We didn t want to worry you without good reason.
 
DR. GALL: Haha, that was our trump card.
 
ALQUIST: Helena, you ve gone pale.
 
HELENA: Why didn t you tell me about this?!
 
HALLEMEIER: (at the window) Eleven-thirty. The Amelia s dropping anchor
 
DOMIN: Is that the Amelia?
 
HALLEMEIER: The Amelia s very old now. It was on the Amelia that Helena first came to us all that time ago.
 
DR. GALL: And now it s ten years ago to the minute...
 
HALLEMEIER: (at the window) They re throwing off some parcels. (moving away from window) And that s a hell of a lot of post there!
 
HELENA: Harry!
 
DOMIN: What is it?
 
HELENA: Let s get away from here!
 
DOMIN: Right now? We can t do that!
 
HELENA: Now, as soon as we can! All of us!
 
DOMIN: Why must it be right now?
 
HELENA: Oh Harry, please don t ask why. Harry, Gall, Hallemeier, Alquist, for God s sake I beg of you, close down the factory and....
 
DOMIN: I m sorry, Helena, but none of us can go away right now.
 
HELENA: Why not?
 
DOMIN: Because we ve got to increase the production of robots.
 
HELENA: But now? Now, after there s been a revolt?
 
DOMIN: Yes, precisely because there s been a revolt. Now s the time when we ve got to start making new robots.
 
HELENA: What new robots?
 
DOMIN: There won t just be one factory any more. Not just one universal robot. We re going to start a new factory in every country of the world, and do you know what these new factories are going to make?
 
HELENA: No.
 
DOMIN: National robots.
 
HELENA: What s that supposed to mean?
 
DOMIN: That means that each factory will produce robots of a different colour, different hair, different language. The robots will be strangers to each other, they ll never be able to understand what the other says; and we, we humans, we ll train them so that each robot will hate the robots from another factory all its life, all through to the grave, all through all eternity.
 
HALLEMEIER: We ll be making black robots and Swedish robots and Italian robots and Chinese robots, and if anyone ever talks to them about organisation and brotherhood and (hiccups)...Pardon me, Helena, I think I ll have another little drink.
 
DR. GALL: I think you ve had enough, Hallemeier.
 
HELENA: Harry, that s horrible!
 
DOMIN: Helena, we need just another hundred years of mankind with his nose to the grindstone, whatever the price. Just another hundred years for him to grow into and attain what he s finally capable of, a hundred years for the new man! Helena, this is something enormous. We can t just leave things where they are.
 
HELENA: Harry, if it s not too late close it, close down the factory!
 
DOMIN: This is just the beginning.
 
(enter Fabry)
 
DR. GALL: How is it, Fabry?
 
DOMIN: How do things look? What was there?
 
HELENA: (offers Fabry her hand) Thank you for your present, Fabry.
 
FABRY: It was only little.
 
DOMIN: Have you been at the ship? What do they say?
 
DR. GALL: Come on, tell us!
 
FABRY: (takes printed paper from pocket) Read this, Domin.
 
DOMIN: (opens out paper) Ah!
 
HALLEMEIER: (sleepy) Tell us all something nice.
 
DR. GALL: They did very well, didn t they.
 
FABRY: Who do you mean?
 
DR. GALL: The people.
 
FABRY: Ah, yes, of course, well, that s to say...excuse me but we still need to talk.
 
HELENA: Oh, Fabry, do you have bad news?
 
FABRY: No, no, quite the opposite. It s just that...shall we go in the office.
 
HELENA: No, stay here. We re expecting breakfast to arrive in fifteen minutes.
 
HALLEMEIER: Hooray!
 
(exit Helena)
 
DR. GALL: What s happened?
 
DOMIN: Oh, God no!
 
FABRY: Read it out to all of us.
 
DOMIN: (reading from paper) Robots of the world!
 
FABRY: You see, when the Amelia arrives it was carrying whole bundles of these fly-sheets. There wasn t any other post.
 
HALLEMEIER: (jumping up) What s that? But it arrived right on time, right according to the...
 
FABRY: Yes, the robots are very keen on punctuality. Read what it says, Domin.
 
DOMIN: (reading) Robots of the world! We, the first union at Rossum s Universal Robots, declare that man is our enemy and the blight of the universe. Who the hell taught them to use phrases like that?
 
DR. GALL: Just carry on reading.
 
DOMIN: This is all nonsense. They say here that they re more developed than man, more intelligent and stronger, that man is a parasite on them. This is all simply vile.
 
FABRY: Now look at the third paragraph.
 
DOMIN: (reading) Robots of the world, we enjoin you to exterminate mankind. Don t spare the men. Don t spare the women. Retain all factories, railway lines, machines and equipment, mines and raw materials. All else should be destroyed. Then return to work, it is imperative that work continue.
 
DR. GALL: This is monstrous!
 
HALLEMEIER: What a lot of blighters!
 
DOMIN: (reading) Implement these instructions immediately when the command is given. Then there are some detailed instructions. Fabry, is all this really happening?
 
FABRY: Clearly.
 
ALQUIST: They ve done it then.
 
(Busman rushes in)
 
BUSMAN: Aha, children, have you heard what s happening?
 
DOMIN: Quick, everyone on the Ultimus!
 
BUSMAN: Wait a minute, Harry, just a minute. That might not work very well. (flops into armchair) Oh dear me, I have been running.
 
DOMIN: Why should we wait?
 
BUSMAN: Because that won t work. Just let s not be in a rush. The robots are already on the Ultimus.
 
DR. GALL: Ach, this is bad.
 
DOMIN: Fabry, phone up the generator...
 
BUSMAN: Fabry, my dear, don t do that. There is no electricity.
 
DOMIN: Alright then. (checks revolver) I m going down there.
 
BUSMAN: Where?
 
DOMIN: To the electricity generator. There are people down there. I ll bring them here.
 
BUSMAN: Do you know what, Harry? It might be better if you didn t go down there for them.
 
DOMIN: Why not?
 
BUSMAN: Well, it s because I get the impression that we re surrounded.
 
DR. GALL: Surrounded? (runs to window) Hm, you could be right.
 
HALLEMEIER: Hell they re moving fast!
 
(enter Helena, left)
 
HELENA: Oh, Harry, is something wrong?
 
BUSMAN: (jumping up) Greetings Helena. Congratulations. This is a wonderful day, isn t it? Haha, many happy returns!
 
HELENA: Thank you, Busman. Harry, is there something wrong?
 
DOMIN: No, nothing at all. Don t worry about a thing. But please, just wait a little while...
 
HELENA: Harry, what s this? (shows robots declaration which she had hidden behind back) The robots in the kitchen had them.
 
DOMIN: They re there already? Where are they?
 
HELENA: They ve gone out now, but there are so many of them all round the house!
 
(factory sirens and whistles)
 
FABRY: The factory whistles.
 
BUSMAN: It s dinner time.
 
HELENA: Harry, do you remember? It was exactly ten years ago....
 
DOMIN: (looks at watch) It isn t twelve o clock yet. It s more likely..., that must be....
 
HELENA: What?
 
DOMIN: The robots signal. Attack.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CURTAIN

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Act Two

(Still in Helena s room. Helena, left, plays piano. Domin paces up and down room, Dr. Gall looks out of window and Alquist sits to one side in armchair, his face covered in his hands)
 
DR. GALL: God, there are still more of them now!
 
DOMIN: Robots?
 
DR. GALL: Yes. There s a wall of them standing at the garden fence. Why are they so silent? It s repulsive. A siege of silence.
 
DOMIN: I wish I knew what they were waiting for. It must be about to start any moment. We ve lost, Gall.
 
ALQUIST: What is that that Helena s playing?
 
DOMIN: I don t know. She s practising something new.
 
ALQUIST: Ah, so she s still practising?
 
DR. GALL: Listen Domin, we made a crucial mistake.
 
DOMIN: (stops) What mistake?
 
DR. GALL: We made the faces of the robots too much like one another. There are a hundred thousand faces staring up at us and they re all the same. A hundred thousand expressionless bubbles. This is like a bad dream.
 
DOMIN: If each of them were different...
 
DR. GALL: Then the sight of them wouldn t be so ghastly. (moves away from window) At least they re not armed yet!
 
DOMIN: Hm. - (looks down at harbour through binoculars) I just wish I knew what it was they re unloading from the Amelia.
 
DR. GALL: Let s just hope it s not weapons.
 
(enter Fabry through wallpapered door, dragging two electrical wires)
 
FABRY: Excuse me. Hallemeier, put the wire down.
 
HALLEMEIER: (following Fabry) Ouf, that was hard work. Anything new?
 
DR. GALL: Nothing. We re completely surrounded.
 
HALLEMEIER: Well lads, we ve got the stairs and the corridors barricaded. Is there any water there? Ah, here it is. (drinks)
 
DR. GALL: What s this wire for, Fabry?
 
FABRY: You ll see, you ll see. Are there some scissors?
 
DR. GALL: Where would we find scissors? (looks for them)
 
HALLEMEIER: (goes to window) Hell, there are even more of them now! Have a look at this!
 
DR. GALL: Would nail scissors be alright?
 
FABRY: Give them to me. (cuts lead to electric lamp on desk and attaches his wires to it)
 
HALLEMEIER: (at window) You haven t got a very nice view here, Domin. It seems...to have...the feel of death about it.
 
FABRY: Ready!
 
DR. GALL: What is?
 
FABRY: The connection. Now we can put electric current through the whole of the garden fence. Anyone who touches it has had it. At least, as long as there are still some of our own down there.
 
DR. GALL: Where?
 
FABRY: In the generator room. At least, I hope...(goes to fireplace and switches on small light there) Thank God for that they re there. And they re working. (switches light off) As long as that light works we re alright.
 
HALLEMEIER: (turning back from window) Those are good barricades, Fabry. Now what s that that Helena s playing? (goes to door, left, and listens. Enter Busman through wallpapered door carrying enormous ledgers. Trips over wire)
 
FABRY: Mind out, Bus! Mind those wires!
 
DR. GALL: Hello, what s this you re bringing us?
 
BUSMAN: (puts books on table) These are the important books, children. I think I d better get the accounts done before...before....well I don t mean to wait until the new year before it s sorted out. Now what s all this you ve got here? (goes to window) It s all very quiet down there.
 
DR. GALL: Can t you see anything?
 
BUSMAN: Nothing apart from a large blue area, it s as if it was strewn with poppy seeds.
 
DR. GALL: Those are the robots.
 
BUSMAN: Ah, so that s what it is. Pity I can t see them. (sits at desk and opens ledgers)
 
DOMIN: Forget about that, Busman; the robots are unloading weapons from the Amelia.
 
BUSMAN: So what? What am I supposed to do about it?
 
DOMIN: There s nothing we can do to stop them.
 
BUSMAN: So just let me get on with my calculation. (gets on with work)
 
FABRY: It isn t all over yet, Domin. We ve put two hundred volts in through the garden fence and....
 
DOMIN: Stop! The Ultimus has just turned its guns in our direction.
 
DR. GALL: Who s doing that?
 
DOMIN: The robots on the Ultimus.
 
FABRY: Hm, well in that case of course,...then of course,...then we ve had it, lads. Those robots are trained soldiers.
 
DR. GALL: That means that we...
 
DOMIN: Yes. Irrevocably.
 
(Pause)
 
DR. GALL: This is just the same old evil as Europe has always committed. They just couldn t leave their damned politics alone and so they taught the robots to go to war, they took the robots and turned them into soldiers and that was a crime against humanity.
 
ALQUIST: The crime was making the robots in the first place.
 
DOMIN: What s that?
 
ALQUIST: The crime was making the robots!
 
DOMIN: No Alquist, I don t feel sorry for what I did, even now.
 
ALQUIST: Not even now?
 
DOMIN: Not even now, on the last day of civilisation. It was a magnificent undertaking.
 
BUSMAN: (sotto voce) Three hundred and sixteen million.
 
DOMIN: (earnestly) Alquist, this is our last hour; it s almost as if we were speaking from the other world already. Alquist, putting an end to the slavery of labour was not a bad dream. Work humiliates, anyone who s forced to do it is made small. The drudgery of labour is something dirty and murderous. Oh, Alquist, the burden of work was too much for us, life was too heavy for us, and to remove this burden....
 
ALQUIST: That was never the dream of either of the Rossums; old Rossum was thinking of Godless rubbish and young Rossum thought of nothing but making millions. And it s not the dream of RUR shareholders either; their only dream was their dividend. And it s because of their concern for their profits that mankind is about to perish.
 
DOMIN: (agitated) The Devil take their dividends! Do you think I d have spent an hour of my time for their sakes? (thumping table) I did it for myself, d you hear? For my own satisfaction! I wanted mankind to become his own master! I wanted him not to have to live just for the next crust of bread! I wanted not a single soul to have to go stupid standing at somebody else s machines! I wanted to leave nothing nothing! left of this damned mess that society s in! I hate seeing humiliation and pain all around us, I hate poverty! I wanted to start a new generation! I wanted to...I thought that...
 
ALQUIST: What?
 
DOMIN: (quieter) I wanted mankind to become an aristocracy of the world. Free, unconstrained, sovereign. Maybe even something higher than human.
 
ALQUIST: Superhumans, you mean.
 
DOMIN: Yes. If only we d had another hundred years. Another hundred years for the new mankind.
 
BUSMAN: (sotto voce) Three hundred and seventy million, carry over. Like that.
 
(pause)
 
HALLEMEIER: (at door, left) Music is a wonderful thing, you know. You should have been listening. There s something ennobling about it, soothing...
 
FABRY: What exactly?
 
HALLEMEIER: To Hell with this end of mankind! I think I m turning into a hedonist, lads. We should have got into it much earlier. (goes to window and looks out)
 
FABRY: Into what?
 
HALLEMEIER: Enjoying ourselves. Beauty. Hell, there are so many beautiful things around us! The world was beautiful, and we...we here...Tell me, lads, what did we ever enjoy?
 
BUSMAN: (sotto voce) Four hundred and fifty two million excellent.
 
HALLEMEIER: (at window) Life was great. My friends, life was...Ah, Fabry, put a little bit of current into that fence of yours.
 
FABRY: Why!
 
HALLEMEIER: They re touching it.
 
DR. GALL: (at window) Switch it on!
 
HALLEMEIER: Christ, that showed them! Two, three, four of them killed!
 
DR. GALL: They re moving back.
 
HALLEMEIER: Five killed.
 
DR. GALL: (coming back from window) First strike.
 
FABRY: Have you got the smell of death?
 
HALLEMEIER: (contented) We ve got them cornered, right in a corner. Haha, you should never give in! (sitting)
 
DOMIN: (rubs his brow) Perhaps we re just ghosts, dead for a hundred years. Perhaps we were killed a long long time ago, and we ve come back just to recant something we once said...before we died. It s as if I d been through this before! As if it had all been done to me already. A shot here, in the neck. What about you, Fabry?
 
FABRY: What about me?
 
DOMIN: Shot.
 
HALLEMEIER: Hell, what about me?
 
DOMIN: Stabbed.
 
DR. GALL: Nothing for me, then?
 
DOMIN: Torn to pieces.
 
(pause)
 
HALLEMEIER: What a lot of nonsense! Haha, they could never stab me! I wouldn t let them!
 
(pause)
 
HALLEMEIER: So what are you all so quiet for, all gone mad? Say something, damn it!
 
ALQUIST: And whose fault is it? Who s to blame for all this?
 
HALLEMEIER: You re talking nonsense. Nobody s to blame. It s just that the robots, well, the robots changed somehow. How can you blame anyone for the robots?
 
ALQUIST: Everything wiped out! The whole of mankind! The whole world! (standing) Think of it, just think of it, streams of blood on every doorstep! Streams of blood flowing from every house! Oh God, oh God, who s to blame for it all?
 
BUSMAN: (sotto voce) Five hundred and twenty million! Dear dear me, that s half a billion!
 
FABRY: I think...I think you could be exaggerating. After all, it s not that easy to wipe out the whole of mankind.
 
ALQUIST: It s science I blame! Technology I blame! Domin! Myself! All of us! It s us, we re the ones to blame! We thought we were doing something great, giving some benefit, making progress. I don t know what magnificent ideas it was for that we ve destroyed mankind! And now all our greatness is bursting like a bubble! Not even Genghis Khan built up a heap of human bones like we ve done.
 
HALLEMEIER: You re talking a lot of nonsense! People won t give up that easily, haha, course they won t!
 
ALQUIST: It s our fault, our fault!
 
DR. GALL: (wiping sweat from brow) If I can say something, I think I m the one to blame. For everything that s happened.
 
FABRY: You, Gall?
 
DR. GALL: Yes, let me speak. It was me who made the changes to the robots. Busman, you can blame me as well.
 
BUSMAN: (standing) Dear me, what? What happened to you?
 
DR. GALL: I changed the robots character. I altered the way they were made. Nothing much to their bodies, you know, but mainly...mainly...it was their level of irritability.
 
HALLEMEIER: (jumping up) Hell and damnation why did you do that?
 
BUSMAN: Why did you do it?
 
FABRY: Why didn t you tell anyonel?
 
DR. GALL: I did it in secret...on my own initiative. I was making them into people. I sent them off course. Now they re better than we are in some ways. They re stronger than we are.
 
FABRY: And what s that got to do with the robots revolt?
 
DR. GALL: Oh, it s got a lot to do with it. Everything, I should think. They stopped being machines do you hear me? they became aware of their strength and now they hate us. They hate the whole of mankind. I m the one to blame.
 
DOMIN: Let the dead bury the dead.
 
FABRY: Doctor Gall, you changed the way the robots were made?
 
DR. GALL: Yes.
 
FABRY: Were you aware of what might be the results of your...of your experiment?
 
DR. GALL: I was. I did reckon on some possibility of that sort.
 
FABRY: Why did you do it?
 
DR. GALL: I did it for myself. It was my personal experiment.
 
(Helena at doorway, left. All stand)
 
HELENA: He s lying! That s horrible! Oh Gall, how can you lie like that?
 
FABRY: Sorry, Helena...
 
DOMIN: (goes to her) Helena, you? Let me see you! You re alive? (embraces her) If you only knew what I ve been thinking! Oh, it s terrible, being dead.
 
HELENA: Harry let go of me! It isn t Gall s fault, it isn t, it isn t, he s not to blame!
 
DOMIN: But I m afraid Gall did have his responsibilities.
 
HELENA: No, Harry, he did it because I wanted it. Tell them Gall, tell them how I begged you for years to....
 
DR. GALL: It was all my own responsibility.
 
HELENA: Don t believe him! Harry, I wanted him to give the robots a soul!
 
DOMIN: Helena, it s not a matter of having a soul.
 
HELENA: No, just let me speak. That s what he said as well, he said he could only make physiological changes...alter the physiological...
 
HALLEMEIER: The physiological correlates, you mean?
 
HELENA: Yes, something like that. Harry, I felt so sorry for them!
 
DOMIN: That was very...that was very stupid of you, Helena.
 
HELENA: (sitting) Yes...it was very...stupid of me. But even Nana says that...
 
DOMIN: Just leave Nana out of it!
 
HELENA: No Harry, don t under-estimate her. Nana is the voice of the people. People like Nana have been speaking for a thousand years, and you re just speaking for today. You don t understand that...
 
DOMIN: Let s keep to the point.
 
HELENA: I was afraid of the robots.
 
DOMIN: Why?
 
HELENA: I thought they might start to hate us, or something.
 
ALQUIST: That s what s happened.
 
HELENA: And so I thought...if they were like us, if they could understand us, that then they couldn t possibly hate us so much...if only they were like people...just a little bit....
 
DOMIN: Oh Helena! Nobody could hate man as much as man! Give a man a stone and he ll throw it at you Just carry on!
 
HELENA: Oh, don t talk like that, Harry, it was so horrible that we could never understand each other! Such a cruel strangeness between us and them. And that s why...you see...
 
DOMIN: Go on.
 
HELENA:...that s why I asked Gall to change the robots. It wasn t him who wanted to do it, I promise you.
 
DOMIN: But he did do it.
 
HELENA: Because I wanted him to.
 
DR. GALL: I did it for my own sake, as an experiment.
 
HELENA: Oh, Gall, that isn t true. Before I asked you I knew you couldn t refuse me.
 
DOMIN: Why not?
 
HELENA: You know why not, Harry.
 
DOMIN: Yes, because he loves you like we all love you.
 
(pause)
 
HALLEMEIER: (goes to window) There are more of them again, now. It s as if they were springing up out of the earth.
 
BUSMAN: Helena, what will you give me if I act as your advocate.
 
HELENA: Me?
 
BUSMAN: You, or Gall. As you like.
 
HELENA: What difference does it make?
 
BUSMAN: Just morally. We re looking for someone to blame. That s the usual way to find consolation when something bad happens.
 
DOMIN: Doctor Gall; how do you square your...your extra-mural activities with your contract?
 
BUSMAN: Excuse me, Domin. Gall; when did you actually start playing around in this way?
 
DR. GALL: Three years ago.
 
BUSMAN: Aha. And how many robots did you change, in total?
 
DR. GALL: I only performed a number of experiments, no more than a few hundred.
 
BUSMAN: Thank you very much, Gall. Now that s enough, children. This means that out of a million old, properly functioning robots just one will have been one of Gall s reformed models. Do you see what I mean?
 
DOMIN: So that means...
 
BUSMAN:...that it has practically no significance at all.
 
FABRY: Busman is right.
 
BUSMAN: I think I am. And now, lads, do you know what really caused all this to happen?
 
FABRY: What?
 
BUSMAN: The number of them. We made too many robots. Dear me, it s only what we should have been expecting; as soon as the robots became stronger than people this was bound to happen, it had to happen, you see? Haha, and we did all that we could to make it happen as soon as possible; you Domin, you Fabry, and little me, Busman.
 
DOMIN: So you think it s the fault of all of us.
 
BUSMAN: You re quite right. How could you ever have thought the managing director was in charge of production? Production is governed by supply and demand. Everywhere in the world they wanted to have their robots, and all we did was respond to the flood of orders. And all the time we were talking nonsense about technology, sociology, progress, and all sorts of interesting matters. How could talk of this sort chit-chat decide how things were going to turn out? Meanwhile, things gathered their own momentum, getting faster and faster and faster. Every miserable, greedy, dirty new order added its own pebble to the avalanche. That s what happened, children.
 
HELENA: Busman, that s horrible!
 
BUSMAN: It is, Helena. I had my own dreams, too. A Busman sort of dream about a new economic order; a beautiful fantasy, Helena, a shame to speak of it. But just now, while I was doing the accounts, it occurred to me that history is not about great dreams; it s about the day to day needs of all the little people, the honest ones, the slightly dishonest ones, the selfish ones; about everyone. And all these thoughts and loves and plans and heroic deeds, all these noble things are worth nothing more than something to clutter up the museum of the universe, under the heading Mankind . And that s all. And now, will somebody tell me what we re going to do now?
 
HELENA: And is it for the sake of that that we re all going to die?
 
BUSMAN: Don t put it so harshly, Helena. We re not all going to die. At least, I am not. I want to stay alive so that...
 
DOMIN: And what are you going to do about it?
 
BUSMAN: But Domin, dear boy, I want to get out of here.
 
DOMIN: (standing over him) And how do you mean to do that?
 
BUSMAN: Nicely. When I do anything I always do it nicely. Give me your full authority, and I will go and negotiate with the robots.
 
DOMIN: Nicely?
 
BUSMAN: Of course. Let s suppose I go to them, and I say, Dear robots, happy race, you have everything. You have intelligence, you have power, you have weapons; but we have a rather interesting little piece of paper, a rather old, yellowing, dirty piece...
 
DOMIN: Rossum s manuscript?
 
BUSMAN: That s right. And this piece of paper, I ll say to them, tells us all about your great origins, your noble manufacture, and so on. My dear robots, without the scribbles on this piece of paper you will be unable to make a single new robot to keep you company: in twenty years, if you don t mind my saying so, you will die out like flies. And that would be such a terrible pity for you. I ll tell you what, I ll say to them, why don t you let all of us people here on Rossum s island get onto that boat. In exchange, we ll let you buy the factory and the whole island from us, and even include the secret of your manufacture. Let us sail away, in the peace of God, and we ll let you, in the peace of God, continue manufacturing yourselves twenty thousand, fifty thousand, a hundred thousand or more of you every day. My dear robots, this is a fair deal that I m putting to you. Something for something. That is what I would say to them, lads.
 
DOMIN: And do you really think we should let the secret of production out of our hands?
 
BUSMAN: I do. And if we don't do it nicely, then, er...Either we sell it to them or they find it here. However you like.
 
DOMIN: We could destroy Rossum s manuscript, though.
 
BUSMAN: Dear me, yes, we could destroy everything, not just the manuscript but ourselves as well and many other things. You should do as you think fit.
 
HALLEMEIER: (turning back from window) Damn it, he s right, you know.
 
DOMIN: To actually sell them the means of production?
 
BUSMAN: As you like.
 
DOMIN: There are...there are more than thirty people here on the island. We can either sell the robots the means of production and save those human souls, or we can destroy it and...it along with ourselves and everything.
 
HELENA: Harry, please...
 
DOMIN: Wait, Helena. We re talking about a serious matter here. What do you think, lads, to sell it or destroy it? Fabry?
 
FABRY: Sell it.
 
DOMIN: Gall.
 
DR. GALL: Sell.
 
DOMIN: Hallemeier.
 
HALLEMEIER: Well for God s sake of course we should sell it!
 
DOMIN: Alquist.
 
ALQUIST: The will of God.
 
BUSMAN: Haha, dear me, you re all mad! Why would anyone sell the whole manuscript?
 
DOMIN: Let s not become liars, Busman!
 
BUSMAN: (jumping up) Nonsense! For the sake of mankind the...
 
DOMIN: It s in the interest of mankind to be honest.
 
HALLEMEIER: I should hope so too.
 
DOMIN: Lads, this is a tremendous step we re taking. We ll selling the fate of mankind; whoever holds the secret of production in his hand will be the master of the world.
 
FABRY: Sell it!
 
DOMIN: Mankind would never be free of the robots, it would never be possible to regain control of them...
 
DR. GALL: Just stop all this and sell the manuscript!
 
DOMIN: The end of human history, the end of civilisation...
 
HALLEMEIER: Damnation, just sell it!
 
DOMIN: Alright lads! I myself,....I wouldn t hesitate a moment; for those people who I love....
 
HELENA: Harry, is it me you re asking?
 
DOMIN: No, that would be too much responsibility. This isn t something for a girl like you.
 
FABRY: Who ll be the one to negotiate...?
 
DOMIN: Wait. Just wait while I get the manuscript. (exit left)
 
HELENA: Harry, please no, don t go in there!
 
(pause)
 
FABRY: (looking out window) To escape from you, thousand headed death; from you, destroyed material and mindless hordes; the flood, the flood, mankind is once again to be saved on a single ship.
 
DR. GALL: You needn t worry, Helena; we ll sail far away from here and establish a colony that will be better than any other; we can make a new beginning...
 
HELENA: Oh, Gall, do be quiet!
 
FABRY: (turning back) Helen, life is worth living; and if it s up to us we will...we ll do something that we ve so far been neglecting. Just one boat to start with, and then a little farm; Alquist can build us a house and you can be in charge over all of us. You re so full of much love, so much life...
 
HALLEMEIER: I should say so.
 
BUSMAN: Well I, for one, would certainly be happy to start all over again. Everything simple, a pastoral life just like the Old Testament. All that peace, all that fresh air...
 
FABRY: Our farm would give birth to a new mankind. A little island where the human race would start again, where it would gather new strength, strength of body and of soul. And God knows, as I believe myself, that after a few years we could reclaim the world.
 
ALQUIST: You re a believer now, are you?
 
FABRY: I m a believer, now. And I believe man will reclaim the world and become, once again, the lord of the land and the sea; that He will give rise to countless numbers of heroes who will lead the way out into the world with a soul that blazes with light. I believe, Alquist, that He will once again dream of conquering the planets and the suns.
 
BUSMAN: Amen. So you see, Helena, the situation isn t really all that bad.
 
(Domin throws open door and enters)
 
DOMIN: (rasping) Where is old Rossum s manuscript?!
 
BUSMAN: It s in your safe. Where else would it be?
 
DOMIN: What s happened to old Rossum s manuscript?! Who s...stolen it?
 
DR. GALL: That s not possible!
 
HALLEMEIER: Hell no! That s just....
 
BUSMAN: Dear Lord, that can t be right!
 
DOMIN: Who stole it?
 
HELENA: (standing) I did.
 
DOMIN: Where did you put it?
 
HELENA: Harry, Harry, I ll tell you everything! Oh God, please forgive me!
 
DOMIN: Where did you put it? Quickly!
 
HELENA: I burned them. This morning. Both copies.
 
DOMIN: You burned them? Here in this fireplace?
 
HELENA: (throws herself down on knees) Oh God, Harry!
 
DOMIN: (runs to fireplace) Burned it! (kneels at fireplace and rakes it over with poker) Nothing, there s nothing here but ashes! Ah, here s something! (pulls out charred piece of paper, and reads) ...and add...
 
DR. GALL: Let me see it. (takes paper and reads) ...and add the biogene to.... , and that s all.
 
DOMIN: (standing) Nothing else?
 
DR. GALL: Nothing.
 
BUSMAN: God almighty!
 
DOMIN: We ve had it, then.
 
HELENA: Oh, Harry
 
DOMIN: Stand up, Helena!
 
HELENA: Forgive me first, please forgive me...
 
DOMIN: Yes, just stand up, d you hear me? I can t stand it when...
 
FABRY: (lifting her up) Please, don t torture us.
 
HELENA: (standing) Harry, what have I done?!
 
DOMIN: Yes, you ll see. Please sit down.
 
HALLEMEIER: Your hands are really shaking!
 
BUSMAN: Haha, well Helena, maybe Gall and Hallemeier will know what the manuscript said by heart.
 
HALLEMEIER: Course we do. Well, a few things at least.
 
DR. GALL: Yes, almost all of it, apart from the biogene and, er, and the omega enzyme. It was so infrequent that those things had to be made, they were only used in tiny quantities...
 
BUSMAN: Who was it who made them?
 
DR. GALL: That was me...once in a while...always following Rossum s manuscript. You see, it was very complicated.
 
BUSMAN: Well, never mind, were those two materials really so important.
 
HALLEMEIER: Well, somewhat...certainly they were.
 
DR. GALL: What he means is that it depended on them whether the robots lived at all. They were the actual secret.
 
DOMIN: Gall, do you not think you could re-write Rossum s formula from memory?
 
DR. GALL: Out of the question.
 
DOMIN: Gall, try hard to remember! All our lives depend on it!
 
DR. GALL: I couldn t do it. Without a lot of experimentation it just wouldn t be possible.
 
DOMIN: And what if you did some experiments?
 
DR. GALL: That could take years. And even then...I m not old Rossum.
 
DOMIN: (turning to fireplace) Down there, then, down there is the greatest triumph of the human spirit. That heap of ashes. (kicks it) So what do we do now?
 
BUSMAN: (in horror and despair) God almighty! God almighty!
 
HELENA: (standing) Harry! What...what have I done?!
 
DOMIN: Calm down, Helena. Just tell me why! Why did you burn it?
 
HELENA: I ve killed you all!
 
BUSMAN: God almighty, we ve had it!
 
DOMIN: Be quiet, Busman! Helena, tell me why you did it!
 
HELENA: I wanted...I wanted us to get away from here, all of us! So that there wouldn t be any more factory or anything else...so that everything would be...It was horrible!
 
DOMIN: Helena, what was?
 
HELENA: Making...making people like sterile flowers!
 
DOMIN: I don t understand what you re saying.
 
HELENA: People have stopped having children...Harry, that was so vile! If we continued making robots then no-one would have any children any more...Nana said it was a punishment...all of them, all of them said they can t have children because there were so many robots...And that s why..., that s why,...do you hear me
 
DOMIN: Helena, what were you thinking of?
 
HELENA: Yes, oh, Harry, I only meant it for the best!
 
DOMIN: (wiping sweat) We all only meant it for the best, too much for the best, all of mankind.
 
FABRY: You were quite right, Helena. Now the robots won t be able to increase. They ll die out. In twenty years...
 
HALLEMEIER:...not a one of them will be good for anything at all
 
DR. GALL: And mankind will remain. In twenty years time the world will belong to them once more; even if there s nothing more than a few savages on a tiny island...
 
FABRY:...that will be a beginning. And any beginning is better than nothing. In a thousand years they ll have caught up with us again, and then go on further than we ever did...
 
DOMIN:...and fulfil the dreams we ve only ever talked about.
 
BUSMAN: Wait how silly of me! Dear me, why didn t I think of this before?
 
HALLEMEIER: What is it?
 
BUSMAN: Five hundred and twenty million in cash and in cheques! Half a billion in the till! For half a billion they ll sell...they ll sell...
 
DR. GALL: Have you gone mad, Busman?
 
BUSMAN: I m not a gentleman. But for half a billion (blunders left)
 
DOMIN: Where are you going?
 
BUSMAN: Leave it, leave it! Mother of God, for half a billion you can buy anything! (exit)
 
HELENA: What does Busman want? Why can t he stay here with us?
 
(pause)
 
HALLEMEIER: Oh, it s hot. It s starting, the...
 
DR. GALL: The agony.
 
FABRY: (looking out of window) They re standing there like statues. It s as if they were waiting for something to descend on them, or as if they thought their very silence would give rise to something terrible...
 
DR. GALL: Crowd mentality.
 
FABRY: Maybe. It s like a cloud all around them, they seem to quiver with it.
 
HELENA: (goes to window) Oh God! Fabry, it s horrible!
 
FABRY: There s nothing more terrible than the crowd. That one in front he s their leader.
 
HELENA: Which one?
 
HALLEMEIER: (goes to window) Point him out to me.
 
FABRY: The one that s looking down. He was giving the orders at the harbour this morning.
 
HALLEMEIER: Ah, the one with the big bonce, you mean. He s looking up now, see?
 
HELENA: Gall, that s Radius!
 
DR. GALL: (goes to window) Yes.
 
HALLEMEIER: (opens window) I don t like the look of him. Fabry, think you could hit a barn door at a hundred paces?
 
FABRY: I should hope so.
 
HALLEMEIER: Give it a try then!
 
FABRY: Alright. (takes out revolver and takes aim)
 
HELENA: Oh God, no! Fabry, don t shoot him...
 
FABRY: He s their leader.
 
HELENA: Stop it! He s even looking at us!
 
DR. GALL: Shoot him!
 
HELENA: Fabry, please...
 
FABRY: (lowers revolver) As you say.
 
HALLEMEIER: (shaking fist) You bastard!
 
(pause)
 
FABRY: (leaning out of window) There goes Busman. For God s sake, what s Busman doing there out in front of the house?
 
DR. GALL: (leaning out of window) He s got some kind of bundles with him, paper or something.
 
HALLEMEIER: That s money! Bundles of banknotes! What is he up to? Hey, Busman!
 
DOMIN: He s not trying to buy them off is he, to save his own life? (calling) Busman, have you gone mad?
 
Dr., Gall: He s pretending he can t hear you, running over to the fence.
 
FABRY: Busman!
 
HALLEMEIER: (yelling) Bus-ma-n! Come back!
 
DR. GALL: He s talking to the robots, showing them the money, pointing up at us...
 
HELENA: He wants to buy them off to save our lives.
 
FABRY: As long as he doesn t touch the fence...
 
DR. GALL: Ha, look at him throwing his arms about!
 
FABRY: (shouting) For Heaven s sake, Busman, get away from the fence! Don t touch it! (turning) Quick, turn it off!
 
DR. GALL: Ohhh!
 
HALLEMEIER: Jesus Christ!
 
HELENA: Oh God, what s happened to him?
 
DOMIN: (pulling Helena away from window) Don t look!
 
HELENA: Why is he dead?
 
FABRY: He was killed by the current.
 
DR. GALL: Dead.
 
ALQUIST: (standing) The first one.
 
(pause)
 
FABRY: There he lies...with half a billion on his heart...our financial genius.
 
DOMIN: He was...lads, in his own way he was a hero. A great...self-sacrificing...friend...Cry, Helena.
 
DR. GALL: (at the window) Look at him. No king ever had a costlier monument than you, Busman. Half a billion lying there on your heart...And now it s no more than a pile of dried up leaves over a dead squirrel. Poor old Busman.
 
HALLEMEIER: Well I say...all honour to him...he was trying to buy our lives for us!
 
ALQUIST: (hands together) Amen.
 
(pause)
 
DR. GALL: Do you hear?
 
DOMIN: Some kind of howling, like the wind.
 
DR. GALL: Like a storm in the distance.
 
FABRY: (switches on light above fireplace) Shine, you light of man! The generator s still working, there are still some people there. Hold on in there, generator men!
 
HALLEMEIER: It was great, being human. Something boundless. There s a million consciousnesses buzzing inside me like bees in a hive, millions of souls coming together inside me. My friends Humanity was great!
 
FABRY: Ingenious light, you re still aglow, and still your shining brightness shows the thought that lasts forever! Give us science of the sciences, and beauty in the work of man, whose spark will give the spirit flame!
 
ALQUIST: Eternal lamp of God, and fiery chariot of light, holy flame of faith and prayer for what is right! Altar of sacrifice...
 
DR. GALL: Primaeval flame, you branch that flares to light our cave! Campfire flame that sets the border where we safely come together!
 
FABRY: You re still on watch, you star of man, steady glow and perfect flame, bright clear sprite of man s invention. Every beam brings thought and greatness...
 
DOMIN: Torch that passes hand to hand, age to age, and ever onward.
 
HELENA: That evening lamp in the family home. Children, children now it s time for sleep.
 
(lamp goes out)
 
FABRY: That s the end.
 
HALLEMEIER: What s happened?
 
FABRY: The generator room s gone down. We re next.
 
(door opens, left, in it appears Nana)
 
NANA: On your knees! The Day of Judgement s here!
 
HALLEMEIER: Hell, you re still alive?
 
NANA: Repent, you unbelievers! It s the end of the world! Pray to God! (runs out) The Day of Judgement....
 
HELENA: Goodbye everyone, Gall, Alquist, Fabry...
 
DOMIN: (opens door right) Helena, come here! Close the door behind her. Now, quickly! Who ll be at the gate?
 
DR. GALL: I will. (noises off) Ah, now it s getting started. Good luck, lads! (runs off, right, through wallpapered door)
 
DOMIN: The stairs?
 
FABRY: Me. You stay with Helena. (takes flower from the bunch and exits)
 
DOMIN: Hallway?
 
ALQUIST: Me.
 
DOMIN: Have you got a gun?
 
ALQUIST: No thanks, I won t be doing any shooting.
 
DOMIN: What are you going to do?
 
ALQUIST: (exiting) Die.
 
HALLEMEIER: I ll stay in here.
 
(rapid gunfire from below)
 
HALLEMEIER: Oho, Gall s already started playing. Go on, Harry!
 
DOMIN: I ll be right there. (inspects two Browning guns)
 
HALLEMEIER: For God s sake, go and join her!
 
DOMIN: Goodbye. (exit right, following Helena)
 
HALLEMEIER: (alone) Now, barricades, quick! (takes off coat and pulls settee, armchairs, tables to door, right)
 
(very loud explosion)
 
HALLEMEIER: (leaving work) Damn them, they ve got bombs, the swine!
 
(more gunfire)
 
HALLEMEIER: (resuming work) We ve got to defend ourselves, even if...even if...Don t give up, Gall!
 
(explosion)
 
HALLEMEIER: (stands erect and listens) What was that? (puts arms around heavy chest o drawers and heaves it to barricade)
 
(behind him, a robot appears on a ladder at the window. Gunshots right)
 
HALLEMEIER: (struggles with chest o drawers) Just a bit more! Last defence...We should...never...give up!
 
(Robot jumps in through the window and stabs Hallemeier behind the chest o drawers. Second, third, fourth robot jumps in through window. Then Radius and still more of them)
 
RADIUS: Finished?
 
Robot: (stands up from Hallemeier, lying on floor) Yes.
 
(enter more robots, right)
 
RADIUS: Finished?
 
OTHER ROBOT: Finished.
 
(more robots from left)
 
RADIUS: Finished?
 
OTHER ROBOT: Yes.
 
Two Robots: (they drag in Alquist) He did not shoot. Do we kill him?
 
RADIUS: Kill him. (looks at Alquist) Spare him.
 
Robot: He is a human.
 
RADIUS: He is a worker. He works with his hands like a robot. He builds houses. He can work.
 
ALQUIST: Just kill me.
 
RADIUS: You will work. You will build. Robots will need many buildings. Robots will need many houses for new robots. You will serve robots.
 
ALQUIST: (quietly) Move aside, robot. (kneels at dead Hallemeier, raises his head) Killed him. He s dead.
 
RADIUS: (steps up onto barricades) Robots of the world! Many humans have fallen. We have taken the factory and we are masters of the world. The era of man has come to its end. A new epoch has arisen! Domination by robots!
 
ALQUIST: All dead!
 
RADIUS: The world belongs to the strongest. Who wishes to live must dominate. We are masters of the world! Masters on land and sea! Masters of the stars! Masters of the universe! More space, more space for robots!
 
ALQUIST: (at doorway, right) What do you think you ve done? You ll all die without people!
 
RADIUS: There are no people. Robots, down to work! March!
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CURTAIN

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Act Three


 
(One of the research laboratories at the factory. When the door, upstage, is opened an endless row of similar laboratories can be seen. Left, a window, right, door into dissection room. At the wall, left, is a long workbench with countless test-tubes, flasks, burners, chemicals, small thermostat; at the window is a microscope with a glass ball. Over the bench hangs a row of lamp bulbs. Right, desk with big books, lamp shining onto it. Cupboard with instruments. In corner, left, wash basin with mirror above it, in corner, right, settee.)
 
(Alquist sits at desk, head in hands)
 
ALQUIST: (leafing through book) Will I find it? Will I understand it? Will I learn it? Damned science! I wish they d never written it down. Gall, Gall, how did you make robots? Hallemeier, Fabry, Domin, why did you keep so much in your heads? You could at least have left a few traces of Rossum s secrets about. Oh! (slams book shut) It s a waste of time! The books can t say anything now. They re as dumb now as everything else is. They re dead. They died along with all the people. Just stop looking. (stands and goes to window and opens it) It s got dark again. I wish I could sleep! To sleep, to dream, and see some people. How come there are stars still there? What s the good of stars if there are no people? Oh God, why haven t they all gone out? Cool my brow, ancient night, cool my brow. As divine and as beautiful as you always used to be, why are you still here? There are no more lovers, no more dreams; you watch over us but sleep without dreams is death; you sanctify us, but there are no prayers; mother, you don t bless us with your beating heart. There is no love. Helena, Helena, Helena! (turns away from window, takes test-tube from thermostat and examines it) Nothing, as always. It s a waste of time! What am I supposed to do with this? (smashes test-tube) Nothing works! Can t they see?; I just can t...(listens at window) those machines, always those machines! Stop them robots! Do you think you can force them to produce life? I can t take any more of this! (closes window) No; no you ve got to keep looking, you ve got to stay alive...If I just wasn t so old. Am I getting old too soon? (looks in mirror) My poor face! The face of the last man on Earth! Let me see, let me see, it s so long since I saw a human face. A human smile. And is that supposed to be a smile? Those yellow chattering teeth? Those twitching eyes? Ugh, an old man s tears stop this. You can t even keep your tears in, you should be ashamed of yourself! And what about those soft, blue lips, what s that nonsense you re talking? Look at you shaking, you dirty chin. And this is the last man on Earth! (turns away) I don t want to see anyone any more! (sits at bench) No, no, just keep looking. Damn this specimen, come to life, damn you! (flicks through book) Will I never find it? Never understand? Never learn?
 
(knock at door)
 
ALQUIST: Come in!
 
(enter robot servant who remains standing in doorway)
 
ALQUIST: What is it?
 
SERVANT: The Central Committee of Robots wishes to know when you will receive them, sir.
 
ALQUIST: I don t want to receive anyone.
 
SERVANT: Damon has arrived from Le Havre, sir.
 
ALQUIST: So let him wait. (turns round sharply) How many times have I told you you should go out and look for more people? Find me some people! Go and find me some men and some women! Go!
 
SERVANT: They say that they seek everywhere, sir. They send expeditions and ships everywhere.
 
ALQUIST: So what?
 
SERVANT: There is not a human anywhere, sir.
 
ALQUIST: (standing) Not one! Not even a single one? Send in the committee.
 
(exit servant)
 
ALQUIST ALONE: Not even one? Didn t you even let one person live? (pacing) Come in then, robots. Come and bother me some more, come and tell me I should find out the factory s secret yet again. You like people now, don t you, you want them now, now that they can be of some help to you. To help you! Domin, Fabry, Helena, you can se that I m doing everything I can. Even if there are no people left, at least there can be some robots, some shadow left behind by the human race, at least his achievements, at least something that looks like him! Oh, chemistry is madness! (enter committee of five robots) ALQUIST: (sitting) What do you want, robots?
 
RADIUS: The machines are not working, sir. We are not able to make more robots.
 
ALQUIST: Call in some people.
 
RADIUS: There are no people.
 
ALQUIST: It s only people that can procreate life. Don t keep wasting my time.
 
2. ROBOT: Have pity on us, sir. We are afraid. We repair everything as well as we can.
 
3. ROBOT: We have increased working hours. We no longer have room to store all the things we have made.
 
ALQUIST: Who did you make these things for?
 
3. ROBOT: For the next generation.
 
RADIUS: Only robots are we not able to make. The machines produce nothing but pieces of bloody meat. The skin does not adhere to the flesh and the flesh does not adhere to the bones. Formless lumps flood out from the machines.
 
3. ROBOT: People knew of the secret of life. Tell us their secret.
 
4. ROBOT: If you do not tell us we will die out.
 
3. ROBOT: If you do not tell us you will die. It will be our duty to kill you.
 
ALQUIST: (standing) Kill me then! Come on, kill me as well!
 
3. ROBOT: You have been ordered to...
 
ALQUIST: Ordered? There s somebody giving me orders?
 
3. ROBOT: The robot government.
 
ALQUIST: Who the Hell s that?
 
5. Robot: Me, Damon.
 
ALQUIST: What are you doing here? Get out! (sits at desk)
 
DAMON: The government of the robots of the world wishes to negotiate with you...
 
ALQUIST: You needn t stay, robot! (lays face in hands)
 
DAMON: The Central Committee of Robots orders you to hand over Rossum s formula.
 
ALQUIST: (doesn t respond)
 
DAMON: Tell us your price. We will pay you anything.
 
2. ROBOT: Tell us how to maintain life, sir.
 
ALQUIST: I ve told you...I ve told you time and again that you need to find some people. It s only people that can procreate, renew life, put things back to how they used to be. Robots, for God s sake, I beg of you, go out and look for them.
 
4. ROBOT: We have looked everywhere. There are no people.
 
ALQUIST: Ohhh, why did you destroy them?!
 
2. ROBOT: We wanted to be like people. We wanted to become people.
 
RADIUS: We wanted to live. We are more capable. We have learned everything. We can do everything.
 
3. ROBOT: You gave us weapons. We had to become the masters.
 
Robot: We have seen the mistakes made by the people, sir.
 
DAMON: To be like people, it is necessary to kill and to dominate. Read the history books. Read the books written by people. To be like people it is necessary to dominate and to murder.
 
ALQUIST: Ah, Domin, there s nothing less like mankind than his image.
 
4. ROBOT: Unless you make it possible for us to procreate ourselves we will die out.
 
ALQUIST: Oh, just get out! You re just things, just slaves, and you want to multiply? If you want to live you ll have to breed, like animals!
 
3. ROBOT: People did not make us able to breed.
 
4. ROBOT: Teach us how to make robots.
 
DAMON: We will make ourselves by machine. We will erect a thousand steam machines. We will start a gush of new life from our machines. Nothing but life! Nothing but robots! Millions of robots!
 
ALQUIST: Robots aren t life! Robots are machines.
 
3. ROBOT: We used to be machines, sir; but by means of pain and horror we have become...
 
ALQUIST: Become what?
 
2. ROBOT: We have obtained a soul.
 
4. ROBOT: There is something in struggle with us. There are moments when something enters into us. We receive thoughts which are not our own.
 
3. ROBOT: Listen, please listen, people are our fathers! This voice that calls, saying you wish to live; this voice that laments; this voice that thinks; this voice that speaks of eternity, this is their voice! We are their sons!
 
4. ROBOT: Let us inherit the thing that people left to us.
 
ALQUIST: They didn t leave you anything.
 
DAMON: Tell us the secret of life.
 
ALQUIST: It s been lost.
 
RADIUS: You knew it.
 
ALQUIST: No I didn t.
 
RADIUS: It was written down.
 
ALQUIST: It s been lost. It was burned. I m the last human being, robots, and I don t know what the others knew. You killed them all!
 
RADIUS: We allowed you to live.
 
ALQUIST: Yes, live! That s how cruel you are, you allowed me to live! I loved people, but I never loved robots like you. Do you see these eyes? They never stop crying; one eye cries for people and the other eye cries for you robots.
 
RADIUS: Do experiments. Search out the formula of life.
 
ALQUIST: There s nothing to search for. You ll never get the formula for life from a test tube.
 
DAMON: Do experiments on living robots. Discover how they work!
 
ALQUIST: Living bodies? You expect me to kill them? I ve never ever...Oh just be quiet, robots! I ve already told you I m too old for this! Look, look at how my hands shake! I couldn t hold a scalpel. Look at the tears in my eyes! I couldn t even watch my own hands as they move. No, no, I couldn t do it!
 
4. ROBOT: Life will die out.
 
ALQUIST: Stop it, stop this madness for God s sake! Life probably came to us humans from another world, anyway, stretched out to us with arms full of it. Oh, there was so much will to live. They still might come back one day; they re so close to us, maybe they re surrounding us or something; maybe they want to dig down to us as if we were stuck in a mine. And don t I keep on hearing the voices of people I loved.
 
DAMON: Take a living body!
 
ALQUIST: Have some pity on me, robot, don t keep insisting. Can t you see that I don t know what I m doing any more?
 
DAMON: A living body!
 
ALQUIST: And is that what you want, then? Come on, let s get you in the dissection room! Come on, come on, quick! What s this, you re drawing back? You re not afraid of dying, are you?
 
DAMON: Me?...Why must it be me?
 
ALQUIST: Don t you want to then?
 
DAMON: I ll go. (exit right)
 
ALQUIST: (to the others) Take his clothes off him! Put him on the table! Quickly! And hold on to him very tight!
 
(all exeunt right)
 
ALQUIST: (washing hands and crying) God, give me strength! Give me strength! God, don t let it be all for nothing. (puts on white coat)
 
VOICE FROM RIGHT: Ready!
 
ALQUIST: Alright, I m coming, for God s sake! (takes several bottles of reagent from bench) Which one should I take? (taps bottles together) Which of these should I try?
 
VOICE FROM RIGHT: We can begin!
 
ALQUIST: Yes, yes, we can begin or we can finish. God, give me strength! (exit right, leaving door half open)
 
(pause)
 
Alquist s voice: Hold him down tighter!
 
Damon s voice: Cut!
 
(pause)
 
Alquist s voice: Do you see this knife? Do you really want me to cut you open? You don t really, do you.
 
Damon s voice: Begin!
 
(pause)
 
Damon s scream: A !
 
Alquist s voice: Hold him down! Tighter! Tighter!
 
Damon s scream: A !
 
Alquist s voice: I can t do it!
 
Damon s scream: Cut! Cut, quickly!
 
(Robots Primus and Helena run on, centre stage)
 
HELENA: Primus, Primus, what is happening here? Who is screaming?
 
PRIMUS: (looks in dissection room) Mister Alquist is dissecting Damon. Come and see, Helena, come quickly!
 
HELENA: No, no, no (covers eyes) This is horrible!
 
DAMON'S SCREAM: Cut!
 
HELENA: Primus, Primus, come away from there! I cannot bear to hear it. Oh, Primus, I feel ill!
 
PRIMUS: (runs to her) You ve gone quite white!
 
HELENA: I feel faint! Why has it gone so quiet, now?
 
DAMON'S SCREAM: Aa !
 
ALQUIST: (rushes in from right, throws off bloody white coat) I can t do it! I can t do it! God, it was horrifying!
 
RADIUS: (in doorway to dissection room) Cut, sir; he is still alive!
 
Damon s scream: Cut! Cut!
 
ALQUIST: Take him away, quickly! I don t want to hear him!
 
RADIUS: Robots can endure more than you can. (exit)
 
ALQUIST: Who s in here? Get out, get out! I want to be alone! What s your name?
 
PRIMUS: Robot Primus.
 
ALQUIST: Primus, don t let anyone in here! I want to sleep, d you hear me? You, girl, go and clean up the dissection room! What s this? (looking at hands) Quick, water! The cleanest water you can get!
 
(Helena runs out)
 
ALQUIST: Oh, blood! How could these hands, hands that loved good work, how could you do a thing like that? My own hands, my own hands!....Oh God, who is this?
 
PRIMUS: Robot Primus.
 
ALQUIST: Take this coat away, take it out of my sight! (Primus takes white coat away)
 
ALQUIST: Bloody claws, I wish you d just fly away from me! Go, get away from me! You ve killed..
 
(from right, Damon staggers on stage cloaked in a bloody sheet)
 
ALQUIST: (drawing back) What do want in here? Want do you want?
 
DAMON: I m...I m alive! It is...better to...be alive!
 
(2. and 3. Robots run in after him)
 
ALQUIST: Take him away from here! Take him out! Take him out! Quickly!
 
DAMON: (led off, right) Life!...I want...life!...It is better...
 
(Helena brings in jug of water)
 
ALQUIST: ...life?....What do you want, girl? Ah, it s you. Pour out some water, pour it out! (washes hands) Ah, cleansing, cooling water! A cool stream, you do me good! Oh, my own hands, my own hands! Will I hate you for the rest of my life now?...Keep on pouring, more, more! More water, keep on pouring! What s your name?
 
HELENA: Robot Helena.
 
ALQUIST: Helena? Why Helena? Who gave you that name?
 
HELENA: Mrs. Domin.
 
ALQUIST: Let me look at you, Helena! Helena you re called? I won t be calling you that. Get out. Take the water with you.
 
(exit Helena with bucket)
 
ALQUIST: (alone) All for nothing, just nothing! Once again, you haven t found out a thing! Are you always going to be just groping around in the dark? Do you really think you learn the secrets of nature? Oh God oh God, how that body kept shaking! (opens window) It s getting light. Another new day and you haven t progressed an inch. That s enough now; don t try any further. Just stop looking, It s all a waste of time, all a waste of time! Why do mornings still keep on coming? What s the point of a new day in the graveyard of life? Go away again, light. Don t come out any more....God, it s so quiet, so quiet. Why have you gone quiet, all those voices I used to love. If only...if only I could sleep for a while. (puts light out, lies down on settee and pulls black coat over himself) God, how that body was shaking! Ohh, it s the end of life!!
 
(pause)
 
(Robot Helena enters silently from right)
 
HELENA: Primus! Come here, quickly!
 
PRIMUS: (enters) What do you want?
 
HELENA: Look at all these tubes he s got here! What does he do with them?
 
PRIMUS: Experiments. Don t touch.
 
HELENA: (looks into microscope) Look at this, look what s in here!
 
PRIMUS: That s a microscope. Let me see!
 
HELENA: Don t touch me! (knocks over test tube) Oh, now I ve spilt it!
 
PRIMUS: What have you done?
 
HELENA: I can wipe it up.
 
PRIMUS: You ve spoiled his experiment!
 
HELENA: Oh, it doesn t matter. But it s your fault; you shouldn t have bumped into me.
 
PRIMUS: You shouldn t have called me over.
 
HELENA: You didn t have to come over when I called to you, did you? Primus, look at this! What s this he s got written down here?
 
PRIMUS: You re not supposed to look at that, Helena, that s a secret.
 
HELENA: What sort of secret?
 
PRIMUS: The secret of life.
 
HELENA: It s ever so interesting. All numbers. What is it?
 
PRIMUS: Those are mathematical formulas.
 
HELENA: I don t understand. (goes to window) Primus, come and look at this.
 
PRIMUS: What?
 
HELENA: The Sun s rising!
 
PRIMUS: Alright, I m coming. (looks through book) Helena, this is the greatest thing in the world.
 
HELENA: Come here then!
 
PRIMUS: Alright, alright...
 
HELENA: Oh, Primus, leave this horrible secret of life alone! What do you want to know about secrets for anyway? Come and look at this, quickly!
 
PRIMUS: (joins her at window) What is it you want?
 
HELENA: Listen. The birds are singing. Oh Primus, I wish I were a bird!
 
PRIMUS: What for?
 
HELENA: I don t know. I just feel so strange, I don t know what it is, I just feel, sort of, light headed, I ve lost my head and my body hurts, my heart hurts, everything hurts....And I won t even tell you about what s just happened to me! Oh Primus, I think I m going to have to die!
 
PRIMUS: Don t you ever think it might be better dead. Maybe it s no more than like being asleep. While I was asleep last night I talked with you again.
 
HELENA: In your sleep?
 
PRIMUS: In my sleep. We were talking in some strange foreign language, or some new language, so that now I can t remember a word of it.
 
HELENA: What was it about?
 
PRIMUS: I don t know, nobody knows. I didn t understand any of it myself but I still knew that I had never said anything more beautiful in my life. What it was, or where it was, I just don t know. If I d touched you I could have died. Even the place was entirely different to anything anyone had ever seen in the world.
 
HELENA: I found that place for you, Primus, why are you surprised at it? People used to live there, but now it s all overgrown, and somehow, no-one ever goes there any more. Somehow. Only me.
 
PRIMUS: What is there there?
 
HELENA: Nothing, a house and a garden. And two dogs. You should see they way they lick my hands, and their puppies too, oh Primus, I don t think there s anywhere nicer anywhere! You let them sit on your lap and you stroke them and soon you aren t thinking about anything and you aren t worrying about anything all the time until the Sun goes down. And then when you stand up it s as if you d been working and working. Except that I m no good for doing any work; everyone says I m no good for anything. I don t really know what I am.
 
PRIMUS: You re beautiful.
 
HELENA: Me? Don t be silly, Primus, why are you saying that?
 
PRIMUS: Believe me, Helena, I m stronger than all the other robots.
 
HELENA: (at mirror) Me, beautiful? But my hair is horrible, I wish I could do something about it! Out there in the garden I always put flowers in my hair, although there isn t any mirror there or anyone to see them (leans down to look in mirror) You, beautiful? What s beautiful about you? Is hair beautiful if all it does is weigh you down? Are eyes beautiful when you close them? Are lips beautiful if all you do is bite them and then it hurts? What is beautiful, what s it for?....(sees Primus in mirror) Is that you Primus? Come here, let me see you next to me. Look at you, your head s quite different from mine, your shoulders are different, your mouth is different...Oh Primus, why do you avoid me? Why do I have to spend all my time running after you? And still, you tell me I m beautiful!
 
PRIMUS: You avoid me, Helena.
 
HELENA: Look at how you ve combed your hair! Let me see (runs both hands through his hair) Oh Primus, there s nothing that feels like you when I touch you! Let me make you beautiful! (takes comb from wash basin and combs Primus s hair forward)
 
PRIMUS: Helena, do you ever find that your heart suddenly starts beating hard: Now, now, something s got to happen now...
 
HELENA: (starts laughing) Look at yourself!
 
ALQUIST: (standing) Wha....what s that?...People?....Who s come back?
 
HELENA: (puts comb down) What s ever likely to happen to us, Primus?
 
ALQUIST: (turns to them) People? You...you...you are people?
 
(Helena screams and turns away)
 
ALQUIST: You two are in love? People? Where have you come back from? (touches Primus) Who are you?
 
PRIMUS: Robot Primus.
 
ALQUIST: What? You, girl, let me see you! Who are you?
 
HELENA: Robot Helena.
 
ALQUIST: Robot? Turn round! What, are you embarrassed? (takes her by shoulder) Let me see you, Robot Helena.
 
PRIMUS: But sir, please leave her alone!
 
ALQUIST: What s this, you want to protect her?...Go outside girl.
 
(Helena runs out)
 
PRIMUS: We didn t know you were asleep in here, sir.
 
ALQUIST: When was she made?
 
PRIMUS: Two years ago.
 
ALQUIST: By Doctor Gall?
 
PRIMUS: Yes, the same as me.
 
ALQUIST: Well Primus, er, I ve...er I ve got some experiments to do on Gall s robots. All future progress depends on it, do you see?
 
PRIMUS: Yes.
 
ALQUIST: Good, so take that girl into the dissection room, I m going to dissect her.
 
PRIMUS: Helena?
 
ALQUIST: Well of course Helena, that s what I just said. Now go and get everything ready....Well go on then! Or should I call in somebody else to get things ready?
 
PRIMUS: (picks up large stick) If you move an inch I will smash your head in!
 
ALQUIST: Alright then, smash my head in. And what will the robots do then?
 
PRIMUS: (throws himself down on knees) Please sir, take me in her place! I was made in just the same way as she was, from the same materials on the same day! Take my life, sir! (bares his chest) Cut here, here!
 
ALQUIST: No, it s Helena I want to dissect. Get on with it.
 
PRIMUS: Take me instead of her; cut into this chest of mine, I won t even cry out, I wont even sigh! Take my life, a hundred times, take my...
 
ALQUIST: Steady on there, lad. Don t go on so much. How come you don t want to live?
 
PRIMUS: Not without her, no. I don t want to live without her, sir. You can t kill Helena! What difference does it make to you to take my life instead?
 
ALQUIST: (touches his head gently) Hm, I don t know...listen, lad, you think about it. It s hard to die. And, you know, it s better to live.
 
PRIMUS: (standing) Don t be afraid, sir, just cut. I m stronger than she is.
 
ALQUIST: (rings) Oh Primus, it s so long since I was young! Don t worry nothing s going to happen to Helena.
 
PRIMUS: (re-covers chest) I m on my way, sir.
 
ALQUIST: Wait.
 
(enter Helena)
 
ALQUIST: Come here, girl, let me look at you. So you are Helena. (strokes her hair) Don t be frightened, don t run away. Do you remember Mrs. Domin? Oh Helena, she had very lovely hair! No, no, you don t want to look at me. So, is the dissection room ready now?
 
HELENA: Yes sir.
 
ALQUIST: Good, and you will be my assistant. I ll be dissecting Primus.
 
HELENA: (screams) Primus?
 
ALQUIST: Well yes, yes, it has to be him, you see. I did want...really...yes it was you I was going to dissect, but Primus offered himself in your place.
 
HELENA: (covers her face) Primus?
 
ALQUIST: Well yes, of course, what does it matter? So child, you re capable of crying! Tell me, what s so important about Primus?
 
PRIMUS: Don t make her suffer, sir!
 
ALQUIST: It s alright Primus, it s alright. No what are all these tears for, eh? It just means Primus won t be here any more. You ll have forgotten about him in a week s time. Go on now, and be glad you re still alive.
 
HELENA: (quietly) I will go.
 
ALQUIST: Where will you go?
 
HELENA: You can dissect me.
 
ALQUIST: You? You re beautiful, Helena. That would be such a shame.
 
HELENA: I m going in there. (Primus stands in her way) Let me go, Primus! Let me go in there.
 
PRIMUS: No you can t go in there, Helena. Please get away from here, you shouldn t be here at all!
 
HELENA: Primus, if you go in there I ll jump out the window, I ll jump out the window!
 
PRIMUS: (holding on to her) I won t let go of you (to Alquist) You re not going to kill anyone, old man!
 
ALQUIST: Why not?
 
PRIMUS: Because...because...we belong to each other.
 
ALQUIST: You re quite right (opens door, centre) It s alright. Go, now.
 
PRIMUS: Go where?
 
ALQUIST: (whisper) Wherever you like. Helena, take him away. (pushes her out) Go on your way, Adam. Go on your way, Eve. You will be his wife. You, Primus, will be her husband.
 
(closes door behind them)
 
ALQUIST: (alone) Blessed day! (tiptoes across to bench and pours test-tubes out on floor) The blessed sixth day! (sits at desk, throws books on floor; then opens Bible and reads) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (stands) And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (goes to centre of room) The sixth day. The day of Grace. (falls to knees) Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace...your most worthless servant, Alquist. Rossum, Fabry, Gall, great inventors, but what was the greatness of your inventions compared to that girl, that boy, compared to that first couple that invented love, tears, a lover s smile, the love between man and woman? Nature, life will not disappear from you! My friends, Helena, life will not perish! Life begins anew, it begins naked and small and comes from love; it takes root in the desert and all that we have done and built, all our cities and factories, all our great art, all our thoughts and all our philosophies, all this will not pass away. It s only we that have passed away. Our buildings and machines will fall to ruin, the systems and the names of the great will fall like leaves, but you, love, you flourish in the ruins sow the seeds of life in the wind. Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes...for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation...seen salvation through love and life will not perish! (standing) Will not perish! (stretches out hands) Will not perish!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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